f.M/rfkjJh****,, 


d^  '»*'• 


/. 


0&  ■ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Research  Library,  The  Getty  Research  Institute 


http://www.archive.org/details/awakeningofnatioOOIumm 


From  a  photograph  by  Schlattman  Hermanos,  Mexico. 

PORFIRIO    DIAZ 


The   Awakening 
of  a   Nation 

MEXICO 

of    To-day 

By    Charles    F.   Lummis 
Profusely  Illustrated 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 
HARPER  &   BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

1898 


Copyright,  1898,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 


Ail  rigHts  reserved. 


TO 

THE   MASTER 
OF  SPANISH-AMERICANA 

(and  for  one  inadequate  disciple,  not 
master  only,  but  elder  brother) 

AD.  F.  BANDELIER 


//  was  in  my  heart  {^whether  in  my 
head  or  not)  to  have  made  this  a  de- 
finitive picture  of  Mexico  to-day ;  for 
beyond  what  sentiment  may  care  for 
mere  truth  as  a  means  of  grace,  a  cer- 
tain Americanism  in  me  gropes  towards 
the  day  when  we  shall  no  longer  sniff 
ignorantly  at  all  outside  our  boundaries. 

But  as  even  more  exigent  duties  al- 
ready stretch  my  work-hours  to  twenty 
in  every  twenty -four  of  the  year,  the 
pleasure  mtist  be  foregone  of  putting 
what  little  I  know  to  paper.  These 
pages,  then,  largely  as  they  were  written 
for  Harper's  Magazine,  are  submitted 
not  as  a  description  of  Mexico,  but  as  a 
finger-board  along  the  path  to  compre- 
hension. If  hurried,  they  are  not  hasty ; 
if  generic,  they  do  not  lack  the  ancestry 
of  detail;  if  friendly,  it  is  not  by  igno- 
rance;  and  if  they  may  help  another 
American  to  more  neighborly  feeling  for 
a  nation  we  have  every  reason  not  to 
despise  and  not  to  dislike,  my  recompense 
will  be  ample  for  all  the  work  I  would 
like  to  have  done. 

C.  F.  L. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.   The  Awakening  of  a  Nation i 

II.   Astir  in  the  North 14 

III.  Among  the  Old  Bonanzas 22 

IV.  Surface  Gold 42 

V.   The  Heart  of  the  Nation 49 

VI.   New  Wine  in  Old  Bottles 59 

VII.   Cheap  Money 71 

VIII.   An  Unfamiliar  Page 87 

IX.   Clubs  Not  Trumps 98 

X.   The  Man 103 

XI.   The  Ladder 118 

XII.   Some  Outer  Activities 136 

XIII.  Glimpses  of  the  West  Coast 150 

XIV.  Borrowed  from  the  Enemy 160 

XV.   The  Spanish-American  Face 174 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

[From  Photographs  by  the  Author] 


PORFIRIO   DIAZ Frontispiece 

ILLUSTRATED  HALF-TITLE xiii 

GOVERNOR  MIGUEL  AHUMADA,  CHIHUAHUA Facing  p.    14 

ANNEX-SCHOOL  FOR  BOYS,  CHIHUAHUA "  16 

DON  LUIS  TERRAZAS "  18 

HIDALGO'S  LAST  PRISON "  20 

CORNER  OF   THE  PLAZA  DE  ARMAS,  LEON "  22 

AROUND  THE  PILA  VALLAREAL,  ZACATECAS "  24 

ZACATECAS  —  THE   BUFA  AND  THE  AQUEDUCT   VILLAREAL  "  26 

A  BIT  OF  GUANAJUATO "  28 

THE  MOLINO — ORE-CRUSHER "  32 

THE   PATIO   PROCESS,  GUANAJUATO "  34 

COURT- YARD  OF  THE  POST-OFFICE,  QUERETARO,  ONCE  THE 

CONVENT   OF   SAN  AGUSTIN "  36 

ENTRANCE  TO  THE  HERCULES   MILLS "  38 

HUITZILOPOCHTLI "  50 

THE  FIRST  PRINTING-OFFICE  IN  THE  NEW  WORLD  (1536)  "  52 
PRESIDENT  DIAZ  AND  HIS  PARTY  INSPECTING  THE  DESAGUE 

MOUTH   OF  THE  TUNNEL   OF   ZUMPANGO "  54 

THE  BEST- AUTHENTICATED   PORTRAIT   OF   CORTEZ   ...  "  56 

IN  THE  HOSPITAL  DE  JESUS,  FOUNDED  BY  CORTEZ  IN  I527  "  58 

THE  GREAT  CARACOL   STAIRCASE,  CATHEDRAL  OF  MEXICO  "  62 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


A   PATIO   IN  THE   PRISON    OF  BELEM 

THE  BARRACKS   OF   LA   MERCED 

NATIONAL  CONSERVATORY   OF   MUSIC 

THE    NATIONAL    LIBRARY,    ONCE    THE    CONVENT    OF    SAN 

AGUSTIN      

DOOR   OF  THE   CASA  DEL   CONDE,  MEXICO 

THE  NATIONAL   PALACE 

THE  SALTO  DE  AGUA,  MEXICO  (1779) 

THE  HALL   OF   AMBASSADORS 

GUILLERMO   PRIETO   AND   HIS   DAUGHTER 

LAST  PAGE  AND   COLOPHON  OF  THE  THIRD   BOOK  PRINTED 

IN   THE   NEW    WORLD    (1540) 

THE    FIRST    WOOD -ENGRAVING    PUBLISHED    IN    THE    NEW 

WORLD 

THE  SECOND   MUSIC   PRINTED   IN   AMERICA   (1584)  .      .      . 

THE   LITTLE  CHARRO 

GENERAL  VIEW   OF   CHIHUAHUA 

GENERAL  DIAZ  IN   1866 

SESORA      DIAZ,     CALLED      "  CARMELITA,     THE      IDOL      OF 

MEXICO" 

THE  CASTLE   OF  CHAPULTEPEC — MAIN  TERRACE       .      .      . 

PORFIRIO  DIAZ,  JUN 

A  GLIMPSE  OF  CHAPULTEPEC 

THE  BATTLE-FIELD  OF  PUEBLA,  WITH  POPOCA-TEPETL  AND 

YZTACCIHUATL  IN  THE  DISTANCE 

THE  MILITARY   COLLEGE,  CHAPULTEPEC 

CHURCH   OF  LA  SOLEDAD,  OAXACA  

DIVISIONS   OF  THE  MEXICAN  ARMY 

A  VIEW  FROM   CHAPULTEPEC 

MEXICAN   CAVALRY      

LA  NORIA,  PRESIDENT  DIAZ'S  OLD  RESIDENCE  IN  OAXACA 
POPOCA-TEPETL — THE   SMOKING    MOUNTAIN   (17,800  FEET 

HIGH) — FROM   SACROMONTE 

I 


Facing  p.   64 
66 

68 

70 
72 
74 
76 
73 
90 


9i 


Facing  p.    92 

...    93 

Facing  p.    94 

98 
108 

114 
IIS 
120 
122 

124 

126 
128 
130 
132 
134 
136 

133 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


XI 


EL   SESOR   DEL   SACROMONTE,   THE   MOST   FAMOUS   IMAGE 

IN  MEXICO  (1527) Facing  p. 

YZTACCIHUATL —  THE  WOMAN  IN  WHITE — 15,705  FEET 
HIGH 

A  BIT  OF  OLD   MEXICO — THE  RUINS  OF  MITLA.      .      .      . 

IN  A  CIGARETTE   FACTORY,   MAZATLAN 

CHOLOS   OF  THE   WEST   COAST 

PLAZA  AND   CATHEDRAL,  ACAPULCO 

THE  STREET   TO   THE   FORT 

THE  OLD   FORT,  ACAPULCO      

THE  RUBRICA  OF  SPAIN 

THE  ANDALUZ   AMERICANIZED 

YOUNG  SPANISH-AMERICAN  TYPE 

MAP   OF   MEXICO 


I40 

142 
144 
152 
154 
156 
158 
160 
172 
174 
176 


C^:H- 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

If  a  rather  particular  friend  of  mine  shall  ever  come 
to  be  Czar  (and  I  have,  after  all,  one  or  two  reasons 
to  hope  he  may  not),  his  first  concern  will  be  to  issue 
these  edicts : 

1.  A  course  of  travel  shall  be  compulsory  for  all 
able-bodied  adult  citizens. 

2.  No  traveller  shall  print  anything  about  any  coun- 
try whose  language  he  cannot  speak. 

By  this  two-edged  ukase  my  friend — who  is  much 
of  a  bigot  in  some  matters — would  bring  public  en- 
lightenment to  bloom  by  cutting  off  the  twin  tap- 
roots of  ignorance.  When  no  one  can  longer  sit  still 
in  that  birthright  prejudice  whereby  we  despise  every- 
thing we  know  nothing  about,  nor  anybody  again 
disseminate  the  uninspired  guesses  of  a  travelled  bat, 
why,  then,  declares  my  friend,  it  will  become  impos- 
sible for  the  world  to  keep  on  so  stupid  and  intolerant 
as  now. 

The  fantastic  notions  of  Mexico  which  are  too 
much  current  among  us  are  not  to  be  wondered  at — 
though  not  many  of  us  are  so  ignorant  as  the  Wash- 
ington statesman — (a  historic  fact) — who  gasped  as  the 
hack  bowled  him  along  the  splendid  Reforma  on  the 
evening  of  his  arrival :  "  I  never  would  have  believed 
i 


2  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

it  if  I  hadn't  seen  it!"  he  exclaimed.  "Why,  they 
have  houses  /" 

But  our  average  innocence  is  enough.  To  the 
eternal  race  prejudice  add  that  we  are  too  drunken 
with  our  own  progress  to  know  or  care  much  if  there 
be  more  world  beyond  our  fences  ;  that  we  have  saved 
from  Lour  insular  inheritance  the  ancient  grudges,  if 
not  much  else  that  is  English ;  that  we  still  cultivate 
our  foreign  relations  with  a  much  more  primitive  im- 
plement than  the  Mexican  plough ;  and  that  our  ideas 
of  the  next-door  republic  are  mostly  derived  from  the 
typical  Saxon  "traveller"  who  roves  deaf  and  dumb 
and  with  nose  up — and  it  is  inevitable  that  we  should 
cherish  a  darkness  which  is  one  of  the  hardest  things 
for  our  neighbors  to  understand.  It  is  notorious  to 
those  who  know  both  countries  thoroughly  that  edu- 
cated Americans  are  far  more  ignorant  of  Mexico  than 
educated  Mexicans  are  ignorant  of  the  United  States. 
One  reason  is,  doubtless,  that  we  are  the  more  shin- 
ing mark;  but  another  is  that  the  Latin -American 
nations  have  rather  different  ideas  of  a  diplomatic 
service.  They  do  not  send  to  any  country  an  am- 
bassador who  will  be  lost  there  without  an  interpreter. 
Even  down  to  consuls  this  ridiculous  superstition  is 
operative.  Men  are  selected  who  are  at  least  gentle- 
men in  appearance ;  who  can  command  the  respectful 
attention  of  business  men  ;  who  know  how  to  ask  for 
the  information  they  desire.  The  result  is  that  Mex- 
ico is  steadily  informed  of  the  moods  and  needs  of 
this  country. 

A  decade  has  convinced  me  that  Mexico  is  worth 
the  better  acquaintance  of  her  neighbors ;  and  a  re- 
view of  our  newspaper  and  book  prints  of  the  last  few 


THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION  3 

years  concerning  Mexico,  followed  by  a  new  over- 
running of  the  republic,  has  not  lessened  my  convic- 
tion. It  certainly  seems  that  a  little  modern  and  in- 
terior truth  as  to  our  next-door  neighbor  might  be 
beneficial  to  us.  We  have  had  at  least  enough  of 
the  ragtag  and  bobtail  Mexico,  enough  of  the  ancient 
and  the  picturesque — both  fascinating,  but  both,  as  a 
rule,  fearfully  and  wonderfully  "done";  for  we  have 
had  too  few  Janviers,  and  only  one  Humboldt  and 
one  Bandelier.  The  books  of  charming  literary  im- 
pressions of  Mexico  generally  illustrate  their  authors 
rather  than  Mexico — as  indeed  they  are  meant  to.  But 
I  have  not  yet  seen  Mexico  given  justice  as  a  human 
quantity,  an  ambitious  marcher  in  the  procession  of 
nations.  And  that  is  what  she  is — this  American 
Cinderella,  who  is  very  like  to  surprise  some  of  her 
supercilious  sisters. 

Mexico  is  not  Utopia.  It  is  a  very  human  country, 
with  very  human  shortcomings.  The  nineteenth  cen- 
tury's end  may  be  too  early  for  us  to  allow  that  Prov- 
idence personally  created  anything  outside  the  United 
States  ;  but,  at  any  rate,  the  apprentices  who  did 
some  other  portions  of  mankind  were  fairly  competent. 
Of  course  the  Armada  is  much  more  vital  to  Ameri- 
cans than  is  the  pioneering  of  America ;  but  in  spite 
of  our  reasonable  hostility  to  the  Spanish  blood,  we 
must  not  give  our  eyes  the  lie.  The  fact  remains 
that  yonder  disprized  country  is  making  a  develop- 
ment as  wonderful  as  sudden ;  that  while  our  neigh- 
borly backs  were  turned  she  has  stepped  out  from  her 
darkness,  young,  vigorous,  clothed  upon  with  all  that 
gives  dignity  and  stability  to  a  nation,  and  girded  as 
to  her  loins  for  the  most  practical  of  runnings.     She 


4  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

is  no  longer  old  Mexico,  the  romantic  hag  whose 
wrinkles  and  tatters  we  have  found  so  grotesque. 
While  we  have  been  achieving  a  material  develop- 
ment, she  has  wrought  the  political  and  social  miracle 
of  the  century.  Within  less  time  than  has  elapsed 
since  our  civil  war  invented  millionaires,  Mexico  has 
stepped  across  as  wide  a  gulf.  From  a  state  of  an- 
archy tempered  by  brigandage — wherein  it  was  better 
to  be  President  than  to  be  right,  and  better  to  be  a 
revolutionist  than  either — she  has  graduated  to  be 
the  most  compact  and  unified  nation  in  the  New 
World.  She  has  acquired  not  only  a  government 
which  governs,  but  one  which  knows  how  to  govern 
— and  contemporaneously  a  people  which  has  learned 
how  to  be  ruled.  He  should  be  a  happy  patriot  to 
whom  it  is  given  to  make  his  country  a  hundred  times 
as  good  as  he  found  it — a  hundred  times  as  contented, 
prosperous,  and  respected ;  and  that  is  what  sort  of 
fortune  has  befallen  the  creator  of  modern  Mexico. 

Only  those  who  seriously  knew  the  country  in  the 
old  days  can  at  all  conceive  the  change  from  the  Mex- 
ico of  a  generation  back  to  the  Mexico  of  now.  There 
was  no  touring  then,  and  nowhere  was  travel  more 
unsafe.  By  every  country  road — even  into  the  very 
heart  of  cities — the  bandido  robbed  and  murdered. 
Naturally.  There  was  nothing  else  for  him  to  do — 
unless  to  make  a  revolution,  which  requires  brains  and 
money.  There  were  even  Lady  Turpins,  and  some  of 
them  were  geniuses.  Nor  was  there  any  special  pau- 
city of  revolutions — and  dozens  of  them  were  success- 
ful. There  were  no  railroads,  no  telegraphs,  practically 
no  commerce ;  at  the  bottom  of  all,  no  security.  It 
would  be  rather  picturesque  than  scientific  to  say  that 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION  5 

no  man  knew  when  he  went  to  bed  (and  least  of  all 
the  President)  what  the  government  would  be  in  the 
morning ;  but  the  exaggeration  is  not  wholly  ridic- 
ulous. 

To-day  Mexico  is — and  I  say  it  deliberately — the 
safest  country  in  America.  Life,  property,  human 
rights,  are  more  secure  than  even  with  us.  As  for 
stability,  the  record  speaks  for  itself.  Mexico  had 
sixty -two  viceroys  in  286  years,  which  is  not  very 
tumultuous ;  but  it  also  has  had  fifty-two  presidents, 
emperors,  and  other  heads  in  fifty-nine  years  of  this 
century.  Now,  one  President  for  twenty  years.  Some 
will  say  that  this  is  not  republican.  Possibly  not, 
but  it  is  business.  Among  all  the  mistakes  of  for- 
eigners as  to  Mexico,  none  is  more  groping  than  that 
which  disparages  its  government.  One  must  be  care- 
less either  of  the  facts  or  of  the  English  language  to 
call  that  government  a  despotism.  It  is  not  even — 
to  such  as  are  jealous  of  accurate  speech — a  dictator- 
ship. It  is  logical  paternalism — a  scheme  frightfully 
dangerous  under  a  bad  father,  incalculably  beneficial 
under  a  good  one.  Mexico  is  an  Absolute  Republic — 
self-government  in  chancery ;  free,  in  the  upper  sense, 
as  we  are,  but  less  licensed ;  happy,  safe,  prosperous 
under  precisely  the  same  system  as  that  by  which  we 
administer  our  own  homes — for  in  the  family  we  are 
not  yet  ready  to  turn  our  minors  over  to  their  own 
head  and  the  ward-heeler.  And  it  is  proud  of  the 
remarkable  man  who  has  done  what  no  other  ruler  of 
modern  times  has  even  dreamed  of  being  able  to  do, 
and  who  still  keeps  a  quiet,  steady  fist  in  the  waist- 
band of  the  youngster  he  has  taught  to  walk. 

As  I  have  premised,  Mexico  is  not  perfect.     Those 


6  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

who  best  know  it  know  best  its  faults.  But  though 
the  temptation  to  be  superior  and  critical  is  too  much 
now  and  again  for  human  nature  to  resist,  I  would 
rather  take,  on  the  whole,  a  more  original  line  and  tell 
more  important  truths  than  concern  God's  wisdom  in 
making  me  smarter  than  the  people  among  whom  I 
travel.  In  a  word,  my  hope  is  to  convey  some  notion 
of  the  genuine  Mexico  I  have  watched  for  a  decade, 
and  have  just  now  gone  over  anew  for  this  express 
purpose.  What  shall  be  said  is  not  guess-work,  nor 
crumbs  from  the  table  of  hotel  hangers-on  and  refugee 
Americans  and  rented  interpreters.  It  is  the  personal 
knowledge  of  a  documentary  student  and  field  student 
who  has  followed  Mexico  from  the  dates  of  Ixtlilxo- 
chitl's  mythography  to  within  a  week  of  this  writing. 
I  have  just  reinvaded  nearly  every  state  of  the  repub- 
lic ;  conversed  by  wholesale  for  nearly  three  months 
with  every  class,  from  the  President  down  to  the 
meanest  pelado ;  sounded  millionaires  and  beggars, 
cabinet  officers  and  muleteers,  merchants,  authors, 
street-car  conductors,  scientists,  cargadores,  mine-own- 
ers, peons,  railroad  men,  priests,  professors,  and  bull- 
fighters— and  such  responsible  Americans  as  are  to  be 
had.  It  is  no  small  pleasure  to  me  that  these  chap- 
ters, as  they  appeared  in  Harper 's  Magazine,  not  only 
gratified  patriotic  Mexicans,  but  won  the  very  gener- 
ous and  emphatic  commendation  of  the  Americans 
who  most  fully  know  and  are  most  honorably  known 
in  that  country. 

These  personal  facts  have  no  merit  except  to  in- 
dicate an  honest  attempt  to  know  the  present  pulse 
of  Mexico.  No  man  can  reasonably  estimate  a  coun- 
try who  does  not  know  its  people.     If  he  goes  dumb 


THE   AWAKENING   OF   A  NATION  7 

and  deaf  among  them,  he  is  also  half  blind,  for  he 
cannot  comprehend  what  he  does  see  unless  he  knows 
why.  And  he  cannot  know  a  people  until  he  has 
talked  with  them  in  their  own  tongue  to  something 
like  the  average  length  of  his  mind's  tether  and  theirs. 
We  need  no  enlightenment  as  to  the  value  of  a  trav- 
eller who  adjudicates  the  United  States  on  the  strength 
of  a  fortnight's  trip,  burglar-proofed  against  our  his- 
tory and  our  language,  guided  by  the  axiom  that 
wherein  we  resemble  his  home  we  are  right  and  that 
wherein  we  vary  we  are  wrong.  It  may  be  reasonable 
to  presume  that  snap  judgment  is  no  more  accurate 
elsewhere. 

Within  ten  years  the  brigands  of  Mexico  have  been 
simply  wiped  out.  It  has  been — to  such  as  know  the 
geographical  obstacles  —  a  marvellous  achievement; 
and  the  political  difficulties  were  as  great.  First, 
whatsoever  brigand  was  caught — and  Diaz  has  a  way 
of  catching — stood  just  long  enough  in  front  of  an 
adobe  wall  for  the  firing  party  to  crook  the  right  fore- 
finger. There  were  no  hung  juries*  nor  pardon  gov- 
ernors, nor  newspapers,  novels,  and  plays  to  make  heroes 
of  the  bandits.  Second,  the  same  hand — so  firm  and 
swift  to  justice  —  knew  how  to  open  an  alternative 
door.  Nowadays  the  bandit  needs  not.  There  is 
something  else  for  him  to  do ;  and  he  finds  it  not  only 

*  There  are  no  "  professional  jurors  "  in  Mexico.  Nine  of  a 
man's  peers  try  him,  and  a  majority  is  a  verdict.  If  the  nine 
are  unanimous,  there  is  no  appeal.  To  serve  on  a  jury,  one 
must  have  a  diploma  in  law,  medicine,  or  some  other  profession, 
or  an  income  of  $100  a  month  ;  or  must  be  member  of  a  family 
whose  head  has  an  income  of  $3000  a  year. 


8  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

more  salubrious,  but  more  to  his  taste,  to  take  a  part 
in  the  development  of  the  pdtria  he  was  proud  of  even 
when  he  was  her  curse.  He  would  rather  upbuild 
than  tear  down,  if  he  has  a  chance,  even  if  there  were 
no  "  Porfirio  "  and  no  rurales. 

I  do  not  know  anything  in  history  which  fairly  par- 
allels these  twenty  years  in  Mexico.  No  other  man 
has  taken  a  comparable  dead-weight  of  population  and 
so  uplifted  and  transformed  it.  The  wonder  is  all  the 
more  because  to  this  day  every  other  colony  of  Spain 
in  the  New  World  looks  to  be  the  worse  off  for  the 
Independencia.  Whatever  we  may  say  of  the  theory 
of  self-government,  in  practice  not  one  of  them  was 
ever  so  miserably  viceroyed  or  captain-generalled  as  it 
has  been  presidented  four-fifths  of  the  time  since  1821. 
Very  much  the  same  was  true  of  Mexico  until  recent- 
ly. It  has  had  patriotic  rulers  sometimes ;  but  that 
they  were  at  last  sorry  rulers  the  very  roster  of  them 
shows.  Four  or  five  presidents  in  a  year  is  hardly  an 
index  of  prosperity.* 

It  is  not  far  to  remember  when  there  was  not  a  rail- 
road in  Mexico,  and  when  other  material  conditions 
were  in  proportion.  The  actual  Mexico  has  forty  rail- 
roads, with  nearly  seven  thousand  miles  of  track,  and 
everything  that  this  implies.  Its  transportation  facil- 
ities are  practically  as  good  as  those  of  our  Western 
States,  and  the  investment  is  far  more  profitable.  It 
is  netted  with  telegraph  lines  (with  the  cheapest  tariffs 

*  Successively,  for  instance,  in  1846,  Arillaga,  Bravo,  Salas, 
Santa  Anna,  and  Farias;  in  1847,  Santa  Anna,  Anaya,  Santa 
Anna,  Pena  y  Peiia  and  Anaya;  in  1855,  Santa  Anna,  Carrera, 
Alvarez,  and  Comonfort — etc. 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION  9 

in  America),  dotted  with  post-offices,  schools,  costly 
buildings  for  public  business  and  public  beneficence. 
It  is  freer  than  it  was  ever  before — with  free  schools, 
free  speech,  free  press.  It  is  happier  than  ever  before, 
and  more  prosperous  than  even  in  the  bonanza  days 
of  the  magnificent  silver-kings  of  Zacatecas  and  Guan- 
ajuato. There  are  degrees,  of  course,  by  local  varia- 
tion of  impulse  or  of  opportunity ;  but  there  is  prog- 
ress everywhere — material,  intellectual,  moral. 

If  the  visible  prosperity  of  Mexico,  in  the  face  of 
certain  of  its  circumstances,  shall  seem  enigmatic  to 
sane  people  whose  sane  views  are  based  on  radically 
unlike  surroundings,  yet  only  ignorance  can  deny  the 
fact.  Mexico  is  admirably  prosperous,  in  spite  of 
seven  years'  drouth ;  in  spite  of  the  Garza  revolution 
(kindled  in  the  United  States,  in  ways  and  for  reasons 
too  complicated  to  be  reviewed  here) ;  in  spite  of  a 
national  debt  contracted  when  exchange  was  at  from 
8  to  16,  and  being  paid  with  exchange  at  from  85  to 
102 ;  in  spite  even  of  cheap  money.  It  has  been  a 
miracle  of  statesmanship,  but  a  miracle  which  will 
never  be  repeated  in  a  dissimilar  land.  I  will  try  to 
explain,  further  on,  how  even  so  terrible  a  blow  as  the 
depreciation  of  silver  was  to  Mexico  has  been  turned 
to  the  advantage  of  a  nation  which  lies  in  the  hollow 
of  one  man's  hand. 

Perhaps  the  two  things  which  most  impressed  me 
in  this  fairly  thorough  review  of  Mexico  were  the  fever 
of  municipal  improvement  and  the  sheer  epidemic  of 
public  schools.  These  are  but  logical  features  of  the 
Diaz  administration ;  probably  no  more  remarkable 
than  the  other  methods  of  the  digestion  which  has 
assimilated  so  chaotic  a  meal,  but  less  familiar,  since 


10  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

they  are  but  now  ripening  to  the  harvest.  Peace  had 
first  to  be  secured  ;  and  that  cannot  be  had  until  it  is 
no  longer  possible  for  rebels  to  combine  and  drill  by 
the  month  before  the  government  even  hears  of  it. 
Commerce  comes  after  railroads,  telegraphs,  and  har- 
bors, and  political  reform  after  commerce.  And  only 
now  is  the  country  ripe  for  the  other  development 
which  has  loomed  logical  but  late  in  the  statesman- 
ship of  a  decade. 

General  Diaz  came  up  by  a  revolution ;  and  that 
means  debts  as  well  as  inheritances  not  of  his  choos- 
ing. There  were  accidental  allies  to  be  considered, 
and  hold-overs  who  could  not  be  all  at  once  swept 
away — for  stability  is  the  first  need  and  the  first  duty 
of  any  government.  But  both  these  factors  are  now 
practically  eliminated.  Diaz  has  outlived  nearly  all 
his  first  associates ;  and  in  one  of  the  most  extraordi- 
nary games  of  chess  ever  played  in  statecraft  he  has 
shifted,  cornered,  or  jumped  the  hold-over  impossibles. 
There  is  left  to-day  in  Mexico  not  one  important  fig- 
ure that  could  by  any  reasonable  probability  set  face 
against  the  government,  nor  one  that  is  to  its  serious 
present  discredit.  The  long  era  of  dishonest  officials, 
little  and  big,  is  past.  There  are  no  more  brigand 
governors ;  no  more  customs  collectors  wonted  to 
"fix  the  accounts  to  suit  themselves" — as  a  President 
once  told  a  friend  of  mine  to  do.  There  is  probably 
no  other  country  in  the  New  World  whose  whole  pub- 
lic service  is  to-day  so  scrupulously  clean;  and  this 
large  assertion  is  made  neither  carelessly  nor  ignorant- 
ly.  One  has  not  to  remember  long  to  a  time  when 
even  the  presidency  of  Mexico  was  a  den  of  robbery ; 
nor  half  so  far  to  thievish  governors  and  petty  officials. 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION  II 

But  the  Diaz  administration  has  never  had  a  stain  of 
its  own ;  and  it  has  kept  up  its  steady  pressure  until 
now  not  a  state  in  the  republic  is  spotted  as  to  its 
local  government. 

Even  to  one  as  familiar  with  the  swift  development 
of  parts  of  our  West  as  with  the  more  conservative 
growth  of  our  East,  it  is  surprising  to  watch  the  gait 
of  almost  every  Mexican  city  in  municipal  improve- 
ments. Modern  water-works  to  replace  the  fine  old 
Spanish  aqueducts ;  modern  sewerage  to  replace  the 
street  sinks  of  centuries ;  modern  lighting,  modern 
transit,  modern  health  departments ;  public  buildings 
better  than  our  average  towns  of  the  like  population 
think  they  can  afford ;  splendid  prisons,  markets,  hos- 
pitals, asylums,  training-schools — these  are  some  of 
the  things  the  "  despotism  "  of  Diaz  is  planting  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country.  As  for  schools, 
it  sometimes  made  me  smile,  but  oftener  turned  my 
eyes  moist,  to  note  the  perfect  mania  to  have  them — 
and  to  have  them  of  the  best.  Every  state  capital 
has  its  free  public  "  model  schools,''  on  which  it  lav- 
ishes a  wealth  of  love  and  money ;  and  the  state  ear- 
nestly follows  its  lead.  There  is  now  in  Mexico  no 
hamlet  of  one  hundred  Indians,  I  believe,  which  has 
not  its  free  public  school.  The  summer  of  1896  saw  a 
radical  change.  Hitherto  the  schools  of  the  republic 
had  been  in  charge  of  the  municipalities,  the  federal  gov- 
ernment aiding  in  their  support  with  about  $1,000,000 
a  year.  In  July  the  central  government  took  direct 
charge  of  every  public  school  in  Mexico.  This  is  to  se- 
cure homogeneity  in  the  system.  For  the  men  and  wom- 
en now  in  charge  of  the  schools  of  Mexico,  I  must  admit 
that  I  have  never  met  a  more  faithful  and  enthusiastic 


12  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

corps ;  and  they  are,  on  the  average,  very  fairly  fitted 
for  their   work.     In    every   state    there    are    normal 
schools,  generously  endowed  by  the  government,  for 
the  fit  training  of  these  teachers ;  and  the  attendance 
is  encouragingly  large.     There  are  also  countless  in- 
dustrial schools,  art  schools,  professional  schools,  and 
the  like,  not  to  mention  the  host  of  private  schools, 
of  which  some  are  entirely  admirable.     The  teaching 
of  religion  in  public  schools  is  absolutely  prohibited. 
"  That,"  President  Diaz  said  to  me,  "  is  for  the  family 
to  do.     The  state  must  teach  only  scholarship,  indus- 
try, and  patriotism.     In  the  private  schools  we  do  not 
interfere  with  religious  training.     Beyond  the  standard 
we  require  of  all,  they  may  teach  anything  they  like, 
so  long  as  it  is  honorable  and  useful."     The  attitude  of 
Mexico  on  this  point  is  curious.     There  has  been  dis- 
establishment throughout  Spanish  America,  but  it  is 
not  a  usual  sight  to  see  a  nation  so  rigidly,  even  so  un- 
mercifully, regulating  the  Church  to  which  ninety-five 
per  cent,  of  its  population  belong.     The  harsh  laws  of 
the  Reforma — set  by  Juarez,  and,  curiously  enough, 
maintained  by  Maximilian,  who  never  could  have  sat 
down  in  Mexico  at  all  but  for  the  aid  of  the  Church 
party  in  rebellion  against  the  great  Zapotec  iconoclast 
— are  still  vital.    Catholics  have  far  less  rope  in  Catholic 
Mexico  than  in  the  Protestant  United  States.    Church 
processions  are  impossible — even  a  priest  cannot  legally 
walk  the  streets  in  his  churfhly  garments.    Probably  a 
justifiable  reaction  against  the  tyranny  to  which  centu- 
ries of  absolutism — such  is  our  poor  human  nature — had 
corrupted  the  missionaries,  the  equal  tyranny  of  their 
suppression  is  logically  not  to  last.     I  seem  to  detect 
even  now  traces  of  its  gradual  coming  to  a  juster  aver- 


THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION  1 3 

age.  There  is  talk  that  the  Sisters  of  Charity  may 
presently  be  allowed  to  return  to  Mexico ;  and  while  I 
have  no  means  of  knowing  that  this  is  true,  my  very 
faith  in  human  reason  makes  it  seem  probable.  Those 
who  have  watched  the  Yellow  Death  when  it  walks  a 
city  of  the  tropics,  who  have  seen  men  fall  rotting  by 
the  curb,  deserted  by  brother  and  mother,  but  picked 
up  by  these  daughters  of  God — aye,  and  has  himself 
felt  their  tender  mercy  upon  his  broken  shell — such  a 
one  will  hope  for  Mexico  thus  much  alleviation  of  its 
severity.  There  is  no  danger  that  the  old  abuses  will 
return.  They  were  of  their  age,  but  are  now  as  past 
as  our  Salem. 


II 

ASTIR  IN   THE  NORTH 

One  will  look  far  in  most  countries  to  find  a  town  of 
20,000  souls  which  has  more  progressed  in  five  years 
than  has  Chihuahua,  the  first  place  of  consequence  as 
one  goes  down  from  the  United  States  by  the  chief 
railroad  of  Mexico — the  Mexican  Central.45'  Less  than 
that  time  ago  this  enormous  state  was  not  the  most 
scrupulously  governed  in  the  republic.  Visibly  and 
intrinsically  it  rather  suggested  that  Mr.  Tweed  might 
be  "  running  it."  To-day  Chihuahua  is  a  happy  state  ; 
and  its  capital  (of  the  same  name)  is  almost  a  model 
little  city.  The  Mexican  commonwealths  have  all  at 
last  reasonable  governors,  but  there  are  two  eminent 
idols  and  figures  of  speech — Governor  Reyes,  of  Nuevo 
Leon,  and  Governor  Miguel  Ahumada ;  both  magnif- 
icent types  of  the  physical  man,  and  both  executives 
for  whom  no  state  need  blush.  Perhaps  only  those 
who  fully  know  the  Latin- American  character  can 
guess  how  much  of  popularity  this  means:  Not  long 

*  The  "  Symon  Concession,"  subsidized  at  $9500  per  kilo- 
metre. San  Luis  Potosi  also  paid  a  subsidy  on  every  kilo- 
metre in  that  state.  Work  on  the  line  was  begun  in  Mexico 
May  25,  1880,  and  shortly  afterwards  from  El  Paso.  The  rails 
met  at  the  bridge  of  Encarnacion  March  8,  1884,  and  the  road 
was  opened  in  the  following  month. 


GOVERNOR    MIGUEL   AHUMADA,    CHIHUAHUA 


ASTIR  IN  THE   NORTH  1 5 

ago  a  scrubby  corrida  precipitated  a  riot  at  the  bull- 
fight in  Chihuahua ;  the  raging  populace  invaded  the 
ring,  smashing  things,  and  bent  on  worse.  Suddenly 
the  giant  form  of  the  governor  was  seen  elbowing 
among  them,  and  in  a  twinkling  his  stentorian  speech 
had  swerved  the  mob  from  madness,  and  set  them  to 
shaking  the  skies  with  their  "Viva  Ahumada !"  They 
gave  their  entrance  money  to  a  charity. 

But  if  this  be  insignificant  to  the  stranger,  the  visi- 
ble tokens  of  his  progressiveness  are  all  about  the 
capital  city  of  his  state.  Chihuahua  has  suddenly 
(within  three  years,  that  is)  become  populous  with 
public  schools,  not  to  count  several  unusually  good 
private  ones.  Instead  of  the  former  stuffy,  rented 
rooms,  there  are  cheerful,  commodious,  well-ventilated 
school -houses,  with  new  American  school  furniture. 
Ahumada's  special  creation  and  pride  are  the  free  in- 
dustrial schools,  where  rich  or  poor  of  either  sex  can 
have  a  utilitarian  education.  The  Spanish  had  estab- 
lished industrial  schools  in  America  two  centuries  be- 
fore we  dreamed  of  them ;  but  any  one  familiar  with 
the  Spanish  system  (which  was  merely  the  general 
mediaeval  system)  of  education  for  women  can  appre- 
ciate how  typical  of  modern  Mexico  is  this  innovation. 
Indeed,  I,  who  am  not  old,  can  remember  when  it 
would  have  been  a  miracle  in  New  England.  The 
Chihuahua  training-school  for  girls  has  a  hundred 
pupils.  They  learn  (and  by  modern  methods)  book- 
keeping, telegraphy,  type-writing,  stenography,  tailor- 
ing, dress-cutting,  machine  knitting,  etc.,  and  of  course 
English.  President  Diaz  is  not  what  the  dilettante 
might  term  a  savant.  He  was  fitted  for  the  law,  but 
the  whole  trend  of  his  education  up  to  maturity  was 


1 6  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

military.  Yet  he  is  one  of  the  most  studious  men  I 
know.  It  is  wholly  within  bounds  to  say  that  no 
other  ruler  of  our  times  has  studied  so  hard  in  office ; 
and  he  is,  I  believe,  the  only  chief  magistrate  who 
ever  added  a  new  language  to  the  accomplishments  of 
his  nation.  In  every  public  school  of  Mexico  above 
the  primary  grade,  in  every  private  school,  training- 
school,  and  college,  English  is  a  compulsory  study. 
Spanish  will  never  cease  to  be  the  language  of  half 
the  area  of  this  hemisphere,  but  in  another  generation 
Mexico  is  going  to  be  equipped  for  business  and 
pleasure  in  two  languages — the  two  which  dominate 
the  Americas. 

Schools  have  always  more  or  less  appealed  to  me ; 
and  with  the  sympathy  for  Latin  America  brought 
about  by  some  alleviation  of  my  first  ignorances,  the 
Latin- American  school  has  been  one  of  the  most 
pathetic  things  I  have  known.  But  not  in  modern 
Mexico.  I  have  never  found  brighter  children,  nor 
anywhere  pupils  so  alert,  as  the  thousands  visited  and 
talked  with  in  this  latest  review  of  Mexico.  There 
are  degrees,  of  course,  but  all  had  such  attention  and 
such  intention  as  were  fit  to  make  the  blood  tingle. 
Such  vivid  faces,  such  swift  upward  hands,  such  im- 
petuous speech — and  right  as  a  trivet !  I  would  like  to 
see  the  seven-year-olds  of  the  Escuela  Anexa  de  Nifios, 
in  Chihuahua,  for  instance,  pitted  against  any  similar 
school  of  ours  in  a  sum  in  mental  arithmetic. 

Not  only  in  schools  is  Chihuahua  awakened.  The 
new  state  palace  is  a  splendid  building  for  the  popula- 
tion it  represents.  The  alamedas,  parks,  paseos,  owed 
originally  to  the  matchless  Iberian  liberality  with  these 
breathing-places,  are  being  improved  handsomely.  Few 


ASTIR  IN  THE  NORTH  1 7 

cities  of  ours  of  20,000  inhabitants  have  anything  like 
them.  A  first-class  water  system  (based  on  the  old 
Spanish  aqueduct*),  with  all  appliances  for  municipal 
and  domestic  use,  has  been  completed  recently ;  and 
the  same  expert  engineer  is  now  putting  in  a  modern 
drainage  system — with  even  a  sewage  farm. 

It  is  a  curious  elbowing  of  old  and  new.  The  splen- 
did parr6quia,f  one  of  the  finest  cathedrals  in  Mexico, 
stands  unchanged  from  the  old  days  when  it  was 
built  with  $545,000  in  contributions  of  a  redl\  out  of 
every  mark  §  of  silver  mined  in  the  famous  tiros  of 
Santa  Eulalia;  but  around  it  the  spirit  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  is  at  work.  Electric  lights,  iron-foun- 
dries, factories — even  a  quarter-million-dollar  brewery 
— these  are  part  of  its  new  company.  Beer  is  counted 
a  missionary  in  Mexico — and  not  unwisely,  if  it  may 
gradually  wean  the  Indians  from  their  benumbing 
pulque  and  inflammatory  mescal.  At  any  rate,  there 
have  come  to  be  breweries  all  over  the  republic. 

A  $20,000  hospital,  just  finishing,  has  been  built 
actually  by  the  people  of  Chihuahua ;  and  in  an  after- 
noon's fair,  in  the  beautiful  park  of  Lerdo  de  Tejada, 
they  raised  $4000  to  send  to  the  widows  and  orphans 
of  the  men  buried  by  a  great  "  cave  "  in  the  Santa 
Eulalia  mines.  Such  things  indicate  the  stuff  of  which 
the  tall  Chihuahuans  are  made. 

As  Colonel  Ahumada  is  governor,  so  Don  Luis  Ter- 

*  Begun  in  March,  1731  ;  cost  $119,003.  The  present  system 
has  a  70-foot  head  at  the  plaza,  and  can  deliver  over  a  million 
gallons  daily  in  the  driest  season. 

t  Founded  1727. 

X  A  real  is  father  of  our  "  bit,"  the  eighth  of  a  dollar. 

§  A  marca  of  silver  in  Mexico  is  eight  ounces. 
2 


1 8  THE   AWAKENING   OF   A   NATION 

razas  is  "  King  of  Chihuahua."  He  has  been  more 
than  once  its  governor,  and  it  was  he  who  made  the 
really  remarkable  campaign  which  obliterated  Victoria, 
the  foremost  of  Apaches,  and  not  only  won  for  Chi- 
huahua peace  after  harried  generations,  but  did  more 
for  the  quiet  of  our  own  Territories  than  any  one  else 
has  done  except  General  Crook.  Don  Luis  owns  hun- 
dreds of  leagues  of  Chihuahua,  but  is  not  an  unpopular 
millionaire.  When  the  new  sewerage  system  for  the 
city  was  projected,  there  was  no  hundred  thousand 
dollars  in  the  treasury  for  it.  Governor  Ahumada  had 
in  three  years  paid  off  the  state  debt,  paid  the  debt  of 
his  predecessor's  discreditable  Tem6sochic  (Indian) 
war,  paid  the  $123,000  for  the  new  water-works,  and 
paid  up  the  salaries  of  the  state  officials,  long  in  ar- 
rears. But  if  the  treasury  was  lean,  Don  Luis  was 
not.  He  offered  to  lend  the  city  the  $100,000  for  five 
years  without  interest — or  longer  if  need  be.  This 
is  mentioned  not  so  much  because  it  touches  a  man 
admired  and  loved  by  all  who  know  him,  as  because 
it  indicates  the  sort  of  citizens  upon  whom  the  guide 
of  modern  Mexico  is  able  to  count. 

There  is  a  touching  fitness  in  this  swift  uprising  of 
Chihuahua  by  the  paths  of  progress.  One  can  half 
imagine  the  sweet,  sad,  inspired  face  which  looks  down 
from  the  tall  shaft  in  the  Plaza  de  Hidalgo  taking  on 
new  sweetness  as  it  sees  at  its  very  feet  the  fulfil- 
ment of  more,  surely,  than  even  Hidalgo  ever  dared 
hope.  For  next  to  the  remote  hamlet  from  whose 
church  tower  the  patriot  priest  raised  the  midnight 
grito  of  Independence,  Chihuahua  is  richest  in  mem- 
ories of  him.  Here,  in  the  bare  room  midway  of 
the  stone  caracol  in  the  tower  of  an  unfinished  Jesuit 


DON    LUIS    TERKAZAS 


ASTIR   IN   THE   NORTH  19 

church,*  the  betrayed  "Washington  of  Mexico"  suf- 
fered his  last  prison ;  and  where  the  graceful  monu- 
ment rises  he  was  shot,  with  his  companion  heroes, 
eighty -five  years  ago.  One  cannot  look  upon  that 
remarkable  face  and  fancy  that  he  doubted  the  out- 
come; but  even  the  faith  of  Hidalgo  could  not  have 
bridged  to  the  things  that  are.  Almost  where  his  ex- 
ecutioners stood,  to-day  stands  the  state-house  of  a 
government  of  which  any  state  might  be  proud;  be- 
hind his  monument  is  the  handsome  and  crowded 
state  college;  and,  adjoining  that,  two  model  public 
schools.  The  blood  of  martyrs  has  been  the  seed  of  a 
free  nation. 

There  are  in  Chihuahua  many  other  interesting 
things  which  I  have  never  known  discovered  by  the 
tourist ;  but  the  aim  of  these  articles  is  to  point  out 
not  so  much  the  old  as  the  new.  It  may,  however, 
be  fit  for  remark  that  it  is  a  happy  city  which  can 
present  at  once  the  advantages  of  modern  civilization 
and  the  romantic  picturesqueness  of  an  era  forever 
fled ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  city  in  Mexico  which  has 
not  these  schools  of  the  higher  education  of  taste. 

Unlike  enough  to  Chihuahua,  but  still  in  the  cate- 
gory of  Mexican  progress,  are  the  little  mining  camps. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  hamlet  of  Sierra  Mojada,  in 

*  Outside  is  a  tablet  bearing  this  (Spanish)  inscription  : 

"In  this  tower  suffered  his  last  imprisonment 

The  Leader  of  the  Independence 

Miguel  Hidalgo  y  Costilla, 

From  the  23D  of  April  to  the  30TH  of  July,  181  i. 

This  stone  was  put  in  place  Dec  i,  1888." 


20  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

the  state  of  Coahuila,  at  the  terminus  of  the  most 
profitable  railroad  in  America  (since  the  Panama  bo- 
nanza has  passed  its  palmy  days).  Sierra  Mojada,  said 
to  be  the  most  extensive  carbonate  camp  in  the 
world,  may  have  in  its  group  of  villagelings  two  thou- 
sand people.  Of  course  it  is  too  small  to  dabble  much 
in  municipal  improvements ;  but  the  public  school  is 
here,  well  housed,  well  furnished,  and  alert  as  the  next. 
Leon  (founded  1576)  is  thus  far  one  of  the  least 
progressive  of  Mexican  cities.  The  mortal  floods  of 
1888  (which  so  devastated  Lagos  also)  came  up  to  the 
plaza,  and  drove  off  25,000  from  its  population  of 
105,000.  Here  are  now  80,000  people  without  a  bank — 
a  case  which  cannot  be  paralleled  elsewhere  in  the  re- 
public. I  tried  in  vain  at  every  considerable  business 
house  to  sell  a  $5  gold  piece  for  within  a  dollar's 
worth  of  exchange.  Yet  Leon  is  a  prosperous  and 
contented  city,  full  of  little  and  big  manufactures  of 
yarn,  hats,  zarapes,  denims,  soap,  rebozos,  saddles,  har- 
ness, and  the  beautiful  charro  suits  of  velvety  kid-skin. 
And  though  behind  its  peers,  it,  too,  is  awakening  to 
education  and  improvement.  Its  Teatro  Doblado  is 
surprisingly  good;  its  Calzada  ("Shod"  park)  impres- 
sive with  giant  fresnos  and  a  triumphal  arch ;  its 
market  one  any  city  of  its  size  among  us  might  envy. 
The  Plaza  de  Armas  is  a  particularly  pleasing  square, 
with  its  portales  curiously  Egyptianesque,  their  pillars 
painted  red — and  the  cathedral,  a  whole  square  away 
from  its  legitimate  Spanish- American  place.  Its 
schools  are  not  up  to  the  Mexican  average.  One  of 
its  hotels  (De  Diligencias)  is  more  typical,  and  might 
be  commended  to  our  small-city  bonifaces.  For  $1.75 
silver  (then  about  ninety  cents  gold)  a  day,  I  had  a 


■IMHMM) 


hidalgo's  last  prison 


ASTIR  IN  THE  NORTH  21 

scrupulous  and  very  comfortable  room  upon  the  pretty- 
patio,  a  desayzino,  and  two  excellent  six-course  meals. 
Leon  is  the  inevitable  metropolis  of  one  of  the  love- 
liest and  one  of  the  most  fertile  basins  of  the  Mexican 
plateau,  and  probably  will  not  much  longer  lag  behind 
its'peers. 


Ill 

AMONG  THE    OLD  BONANZAS 

Except  the  capital,  historically  the  most  attractive 
city  of  Mexico  to  the  American  student  is  Zacatecas, 
the  Place  of  Grass.*  Here  were  the  first  bonanza 
mines  in  the  New  World,  and  here  sprung  up  the  first 
American  millionaires.  Not  only  that,  but  here  was 
coined  the  money  which  permanently  colonized  the 
first  corner  of  what  is  now  the  United  States.  Few 
cities  have  a  more  romantic  history,  f 

In  1546  Joannes  de  Tolosa  discovered  the  valley. 
Two  years  later  he  and  his  companions  at  arms — 
Cristobal  de  Ofiate,  Baltasar  Bafiuelos  de  Temifto.  and 
Diego  de  Ibarra — founded  the  city.  The  first  mine 
located  was  that  of  San  Bernabe ;  but  the  one  most 
important  to  us  was  the  Tajos  de  Panuco,  discovered 
by  Ofiate  in  the  same  year  (June  11,  1548).  It  was 
this  mine  which  laid  the  corners  of  the  first  vast  fort- 
une in  America  —  the  fortune  which  founded  New 
Mexico.  Crist6bal  de  Ofiate  was  a  typical  cavalier — 
fearless,  chivalrous,  generous.  For  more  than  a  gener- 
ation his  servants  daily  rang  a  great  bell,  and  all  came 

*  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  Aztec  word,  the  plural  of 
zacatl. 

t  Its  charter  was  signed  by  Philip  II.  at  San  Lorenzo  July 
20, 1588. 


AMONG  THE  OLD  BONANZAS  23 

who  cared  to  and  ate  at  his  table.  He  founded  the 
first  chapel  in  Zacatecas — the  little  adobe  pile  known 
to-day  as  El  Bracho,  half  a  mile  north  of  the  city. 
His  residence  stood  on  the  plaza,  but  modern  build- 
ings have  usurped  its  place.  His  palace  in  the  City  of 
Mexico,  next  neighbor  to  the  temple  of  Santo  Domin- 
go and  the  house  of  the  Inquisition,  survives;  its  por- 
tales  occupied  by  cobblers  and  vendors  of  artistic 
junk.  His  son  Juan — unspoiled  by  the  natal  silver 
spoon — married  a  granddaughter  of  Cortes,*  but  had 
by  his  ambition  a  larger  child  than  she  bore  him.  He 
organized  an  expedition  which  cost  half  a  million  be- 
fore it  moved ;  colonized  New  Mexico ;  founded  San 
Gabriel  de  los  Espanoles  (where  Chamita  now  is)  in 
1598,  and  Santa  Fe  in  1605  ;  explored  our  country 
from  northern  Nebraska  to  the  Gulf  of  California  ;f  and 
approved  himself  not  only  one  of  the  most  competent 
pioneers  in  American  history,  but  an  executive  of  high 
order.  In  our  first  pages  there  are  few  other  figures 
so  romantic  and  so  stalwart  as  those  of  Juan  de  Onate 
and  his  comrades,  the  brothers  Zaldivar  (Juan  and 
Vicente):]:  and  Gaspar  de  Villagran,  the  soldier-poet. 

Except  Cerro  de  Pasco  in  Peru,  and  Potosi  in  Bo- 
livia, there  have  never  been  silver-mines  like  those  of 

*  Dofia  Isabel  Cortes  Moctezuma. 

t  It  was  on  the  latter  remarkable  march  that  he  left  his 
name  on  that  quaint  register  of  early  explorers,  the  Morro,  or 
"  Inscription  Rock,"  in  western  New  Mexico. 

\  Vicente  de  Zaldivar,  hero  of  the  most  brilliant  assault  in 
all  American  history  (the  storming  of  the  cliff  "  city "  of 
Acoma,  New  Mexico,  January  22,  23,  and  24,  1 599),  founded  the 
Jesuit  college  (for  Indians)  in  Zacatecas  in  1616.  He  married 
Maria  de  Onate,  a  daughter  of  Juan. 


24  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

Zacatecas  and  Guanajuato.  Under  the  Spanish  red- 
tape — one  of  the  most  complete  routines  in  history — 
it  is  always  possible  to  know  just  what  was  what. 
The  Zacatecas  mines  have  produced  close  on  to  a  bill- 
ion of  dollars.  The  present  output  of  the  part ido  in 
precious  metals  is  only  about  three  and  a  half  millions 
a  year.  Mining  has  shrunken  of  late — partly  because 
of  nine  years'  drouth  in  this  state,  partly  because  the 
rich  need  not  imperil  their  money,  and  the  poor  have 
none  to  imperil ;  partly  because  the  most  wonderful 
of  the  old  bonanza  mines  are  down  to  too  much  water 
(at  500  to  600  feet)  to  be  overcome  by  mule-and-drum 
pumps,  while  the  scarcity  of  fuel  forbids  steam.  Still 
it  can  hardly  be  called  stagnation  when  a  state  with 
half  a  million  people  (as  Zacatecas  has  in  its  65,000 
square  kilometres)  produces  in  its  worst  year  six  and  a 
third  millions  of  dollars  from  mines  alone.  The  ores 
are  sulphites,  "  ruby,"  and  some  native  silver.  Fres- 
nillo  is  the  only  other partido  that  produces  gold. 

Even  aside  from  its  associations,  Zacatecas  is  full  of 
charm.  There  are  but  two  cities  in  the  New  World 
more  picturesque — La  Paz  (Bolivia)  and  Guanajuato. 
The  metropolis  of  the  Choqueyapu  would  not  count 
prior  except  for  its  red -tiled  roofs  (which  are  more 
beautiful  than  any  gray  flat  azoteas),  and  for  the  blue- 
white  glaciers  of  Illimani  imminent  above  it.  Zacate- 
cas sags  in  the  heavy  lap  of  concentric  hills.  There  is 
not  a  level  street.  As  in  La  Paz,  whatsoever  way  you 
go  is  up  ;  and  it  is  not  so  well  paved.  But  in  the  very 
elbows  of  its  ways  is  dignity.  No  city  north  of  the 
line  is  so  stanchly  built  as  this  type  of  the  Spanish- 
American  capital.  I  do  not  understand  a  fate  which 
has  kept  Ruskin  from  knowing  the  architecture  which, 


AMONG  THE   OLD  BONANZAS  2$ 

more  than  any  other,  would  have  set  his  heart  afire 
— at  once  the  honesty  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
Moresque  art  of  Spain,  the  added  massiveness  taught 
by  the  earthquake  lands.  First,  of  course,  are  the 
churches ;  and  through  the  five  thousand  north-and- 
south  miles  of  Spanish  America  these  form  a  series  of 
monuments  scarcely  to  be  matched  elsewhere.  Pal- 
aces, bridges,  public  buildings,  even  roads — all  are  fit 
for  their  company.  One  finds  few  things  more  dis- 
couraging than  to  know  well  the  architecture  of  Latin 
America  and  then  come  back  to  that  of  our  contrac- 
tored  cities. 

The  chief  landmark  of  Zacatecas — the  hill  on  which 
Tolosa  found  the  savages  intrenched — is  the  striking 
hogback  known  as  the  Bafa,  which  does  not  mean 
"  the  buffalo,"  despite  the  beprinted  tourist.  The 
founders  of  the  city  were  Viscainos ;  and  Bufa  is  the 
Biscayan  word  for  vejiga  de  cerdo*  Up  the  flanks  of 
this  hill  and  those  of  its  neighbors  clamber  the  cubic 
houses  of  Zacatecas;  and  in  the  tortuous  ravine  are 
the  towers  and  domes  of  a  host  of  churches.  The 
city  is  full  of  aqueducts,  of  which  the  chief  is  the  fine 
league-long  pile  built  by  the  corregidor  Villareal  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century ;  a  delightful  setting 
for  those  who  know  (as  few  seem  to)  where  to  seek  the 
most  typical  views  of  the  Very  Loyal  and  Very  Noble 
City  of  the  Nativity  of  Our  Lady.f     The  great  curse 

*  Pig's  bladder.  The  word  has  also  been  adopted  by  Mexi- 
can miners  for  what  ours  call  a  "  blow-out." 

fit  was  discovered  on  her  feast-day.  The  coat  of  arms 
(granted  by  Philip  II,,  1588)  was  a  shield  showing  the  Bufa 
with  a  silver  cross  on  top,  and  the  image  of  Our  Lady  in  the 
face  of  the  cliff.     Below,  the  coronal  cipher  of  Felipe  II.     In 


26  THE   AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

of  Zacatecas  is  the  scantiness  and  wretchedness  of  its 
limy  water-supply.  At  the  city  pilas — notably  that  of 
the  Plazuela  Villareal — the  procession  of  water-carriers 
is  amazing  and  pathetic.  Women,  dipping  with  their 
gourd  omates  a  drop  at  a  time  from  the  crowded  basin, 
take  two  hours  sometimes  to  fill  their  shoulder-load 
ollas. 

But  with  all  its  airs  of  antiquity  —  its  vast  old 
churches,  its  hotels  housed  in  splendid  convents,  and 
its  populous  state-prison,  quartered  in  the  bulk  of  San- 
to Domingo  and  the  Inquisition  until  such  time  as  a 
model  penitentiary  can  be  built,  its  multitudinous  Re- 
beccas at  the  well,  its  mining  "patios"  all  the  way 
down  the  canon,  its  warped  streets — the  virus  of  the 
new  has  "  taken  "  in  Zacatecas.  It  is  not  so  unusual 
that  a  quarter-million-dollar  theatre  (the  "  Calderon  ") 
is  being  finished  as  I  write ;  for  splendid  theatres  are 
rather  likelier  to  be  found  in  Latin  America  than  else- 
where in  this  hemisphere.*  Nor  are  hospitals  an  in- 
novation, in  the  country  which  had  better  ones  three 
centuries  ago  than  there  were  in  England.  But  a  strict- 
ly modern  hospital,  costing  $250,000,  is  nearly  finished 
in  Zacatecas ;  and  its  appointments  are  new,  if  its 
aims  are  not.  The  schools  are  in  excellent  condition, 
and  progressing.  The  respective  normal  schools  for 
males  and  females,  the  preparatory  schools,  the  Insti- 
tute of  Sciences  (engineering,  law,  medicine,  etc.),  are 
all  well  filled  and  well  conducted.     It  goes  without 

the  upper  corners,  the  sun  and  moon.  In  the  skirts  of  the  cliff, 
the  portraits  of  the  four  founders,  with  the  motto  "  Labor  om- 
nia vincit."  In  the  border,  five  fists  of  arrows  and  five  of  bows. 
*  For  instance,  such  as  the  "  Degollado  "  in  Guadalajara,  or 
the  Parthenon  in  the  city  of  Guatemala. 


AMONG   THE   OLD   BONANZAS  27 

saying  that  the  Church  has  theological  scho61s  here, 
as  everywhere  else.  The  state  of  Zacatecas  has  240 
schools  for  boys,  169  for  girls,  and  166  mixed — the 
last  for  populations  too  small  to  have  "  separate " 
schools.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  the  average  annual 
pay  of  male  teachers  is  $415  ;  of  female,  $505.  The 
enrollment  of  these  schools  (1895)  was  19,251  boys  and 
12,061  girls. 

At  Guadalupe,  three  miles  south  of  the  city,  is  the 
hospicio,  or  asylum,  with  222  boys  and  150  girls.  This 
is  typical  in  every  one  of  the  United  States  of  Mexico. 
An  orphan  babe  can  be,  on  the  day  of  its  birth,  placed 
in  a  governmental  orphanage,  where  it  will  be  tender- 
ly reared  and  trained  up  to  six  years  old.  Without 
the  loss  of  a  day  it  can  then  be  put  in  an  hospicio,  to 
be  educated  and  taught  a  trade  and  maintained  until 
its  majority — twenty-one  years  of  government  father- 
ing. Possibly  it  may  become  us,  in  our  present  cir- 
cumstance, not  to  look  down  too  disdainfully  upon  a 
nation  which  is  doing  this  for  its  foundlings,  and  so 
much  for  its  children  in  general.*  There  are  naturally 
various  grades  of  merit  among  the  hospicios,  but  their 
average  is  high,  and  some  of  them  are  among  the 
most  admirable  public  institutions  I  have  known. 
The  state  college  of  Zacatecas  is  full ;  and  so  are  the 
professional  schools.  As  in  every  other  Mexican  city 
nowadays,  there  are  also  free  night  schools  for  the 
working-classes.  Relatively  dull  as  Zacatecas  is,  it  is  in 
striking  contrast  to  an  ex-bonanza  in  the  United  States, 
as  these  very  facts  point.     It  (like  its  types  in   all 

*  It  is  also  fair  to  mention  the  fact  that  infanticide,  in  any 
"degree,"  is  a  civilized  invention  as  yet  wholly  unknown  in 
Spanish  America. 


28  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

Spanish  America)  was  not  merely  a  place  for  gutting 
the  earth.  Even  among  miners  was  the  home  idea  as 
it  never  was  with  our  Virginia  Cities. 

If  Zacatecas  and  La  Paz  dispute  precedence  in 
picturesqueness,  there  is  no  question  about  Guana- 
juato. It  is  the  most  picturesque  city  in  the  New 
World,  the  delight  and  despair  of  the  artist — who  can 
never  get  it  all,  nor  rest  short  of  getting  all  he  can. 
More  huddled  and  more  distorted  than  Zacatecas, 
climbing  to  every  point  of  the  compass  by  white  steps 
from  the  great  ravine  into  which  it  looks  to  have 
rained,  twisted  in  every  street  to  the  whim  of  the  way- 
ward hills,  uneven,  indirect,  and  lawless,  it  is  the  most 
artistic  of  cities.  Areas  of  it  (particularly  against  San 
Miguel  and  its  opposite  hill)  are  vividly  like  Jerusa- 
lem ;  but  the  Holy  City  is  a  comparative  toy.  In 
parts  it  is  wonderfully  suggestive  of  the  prehistoric 
terraced  pueblos  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona — but 
vastly  greater.  First  and  last,  it  is — itself :  a  special 
standard  of  reckless  beauty. 

Arrieros  tramping  to  Zacatecas  behind  their  cargo- 
mules  in  1554  discovered  Guanajuato,*  and  the  usual 
swift  development  followed.  In  the  beginning  of  this 
century  Humboldt  found  two  Guanajuato  mines — the 
famous  "  Conde  de  Valenciana"  and  the  "  Marques  de 
Rayas  " — producing  annually  550,000  marks  (4,400,000 
ounces)  of  silver — one-seventh  or  one-eighth  of  the 
entire  American  output.  From  January  1,  1787,  to 
June    11,    1791,    the   Valenciana  yielded    13,896,416 

*  It  became  a  villa  (town)  by  royal  grant  of  1619;  and  in 
1741  a  city  full-fledged. 


AMONG  THE   OLD   BONANZAS  29 

ounces  of  silver,  its  ore  averaging  a  little  over  100 
ounces  to  the  ton.  Though  flooded,  this  fine  old  mine 
is  still  far  from  exhausted.  One  could  write  a  volume 
of  fascinating  true  incidents  (eliminating  the  equal 
fables)  of  the  old  Mexican  mines — even  a  volume  on 
those  of  Guanajuato.  It  was  the  inevitable  story, 
even  where  camp  fires  roasted  silver  buttons  from  the 
soil — the  accident  by  which  so  many  famous  Mexican 
mines  were  discovered.  There  were  wonderful  fort- 
unes, and  streets  paved  for  squares  with  silver  ingots 
for  the  christening  procession  of  some  purple-born, 
and  twenty-ton  silver  railings  for  a  church  altar,  and 
all  that ;  and  there  were — the  other  fellows.  Agustin 
de  Zavala,  nearly  three  centuries  ago,  after  paying 
$800,000  in  fifths  to  the  king  from  his  mine,  was 
buried  by  charity.  Bartolome  Bravo  de  Acufla  ren- 
dered unto  Caesar  the  quintets  that  were  Caesar's,  to  the 
tune  of  a  million  and  a  half — and  his  heirs  had  not 
even  a  house  to  live  in.  They  were  robust  in  virtue 
as  in  vice,  these  cavaliers  of  early  Mexico — like  Don 
Manuel  Correa,  the  miner  who  won  $18,000  at  cards 
one  night,  and  next  day  gave  it  and  $7000  more  to 
the  Convent  of  San  Agustin — which  is  still  ope  of  the 
landmarks  of  Zacatecas,  though  now  a  hotel  not  con- 
ducive to  piety.* 

*  In  1575  Don  Ger6nimo  de  Orozco,  President  of  the  Real 
Audiencia  of  Guadalajara,  authorized  the  founding  of  this  con- 
vent, and  the  land  was  given  a  year  later.  It  was  the  above- 
mentioned  bonanza-king,  Zavala,  who  built  the  present  edifice 
at  his  proper  cost,  in  1613.  Under  the  Reformd  (1857-1860) 
the  property  was  "  denounced "  by  General  Jesus  Gonzales 
Ortega,  and  bought  in  by  him  for  a  song.  The  convent  was 
made  into  a  hotel — as  noble  in  architecture  as  it  is  wretched 


30  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

There  was  some  difficulty  in  spending  a  bonanza 
income.  The  flooded  mine  of  the  Quebradilla  was 
taken  up  by  a  company  and  drained  at  a  vast  ex- 
pense, but  cleared  over  $200,000  for  them.  In  1775 
another  great  drainage  tunnel  was  constructed,  and 
the  operators  made  $2,000,000.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  last  century  the  Pabellon  de  Sombrerete  paid  its 
three  owners  $20,000  a  day  for  five  years ;  and  it  has 
produced  in  all  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  One 
Zacatecas  miner  paved  the  street  with  ingots  from  the 
Casa  de  Gobierno  to  the  Parroquia  (between  fifty  and 
sixty  yards)  for  a  christening  procession.  In  1800  the 
Viceroy  Azanza  passed  a  ba?ido  forbidding  godfathers 
to  fling  handfuls  of  coin  into  the  street  on  such  oc- 
casions. It  was  easy  come,  easy  go,  as  always  where 
there  are  bonanzas ;  with  the  one  difference  that  even 
a  parvenu  Spaniard  spends  his  money  not  like  a  par- 
venu, but  like  a  prince.  The  first  Conde  de  Valenciana 
came  to  America  not  a  pauper,  but  a  poor  man.  In 
the  best  year  he  took  out  from  his  famous  mine 
$1,200,000  net;  and  in  the  last  quarter  century  of  his 
life  the  clear  annual  output  of  that  worthy  hole  in 
the  ground  was  never  under  $400,000.  It  used  a  lit- 
tle matter  of  eighty  tons  of  powder  a  year.  He  was 
counted  a  man  of  greatly  conservative  and  moderate 

in  service  —  in  1863.  The  Presbyterians  bought  the  church 
portion  of  the  building  for  $25,000  (possibly  one-sixth  of  its 
value)  and  dedicated  it  to  their  services  in  July,  1882.  The 
American  missions  to  "convert"  Mexicans  from  one  Christian 
church  to  another  meet  a  notable  tolerance  in  Mexico,  con- 
sidering their  errand,  and  maintain  small  congregations  of  the 
lower  class,  who  attend  for  motives  not  wholly  unselfish  or 
religious. 


AMONG  THE   OLD   BONANZAS  3 1 

life,  and  certainly  was  not  of  those  who  threw  money 
at  the  birds ;  but  he  left  an  estate  of  only  $2,000,000  * 
outside  of  the  mine.  The  Marques  de  Fagoaga  took 
out  a  net  $4,000,000  in  six  months  from  one  vein 
in  Sombrerete.  Not  long  before  the  beginning  of 
this  century  the  Fagoaga  family  lent  a  friend  $700,000 
without  interest — and  the  friend  lost  it  all  in  trying  to 
find  a  mine  as  rich  as  the  "  Veta  Negra  "  of  Sombrerete. 
"  Princely,"  after  all,  seems  a  rather  laggard  word  to 
keep  up  with  this  sort  of  thing — or  with  the  like  free 
hand  of  the  Count  of  Regla.  That  cavalier  (whose 
fortune  spouted  from  the  smitten  rock  of  La  Vizcayna, 
near  Pachuca)  built  in  Havana  two  of  the  largest 
ships  of  the  line  (112  guns)  of  solid  mahogany  and 
Spanish  cedar,  and  presented  them  to  his  sovereign  as 
blithely  as  one  might  send  up  a  bouquet.  He  also 
lent  the  crown  $1,000,000.  In  Tasco  f  a  French 
miner,  Joseph  de  Laborde,  "  struck  it  rich"  in  the 
Canada  de  Tlapujahua.  By  way  of  gratitude  he  built 
(about  1650)  the  splendid  church  there,  and  endowed 
it.  The  building  alone  cost  him  upwards  of  $400,000. 
It  may  be  added  that  these  are  not  "  prospector's 
assays."  A  man  did  not  "  boom  "  his  mine  in  the 
days  when  a  deadly  fifth  of  its  product  went  to  the 
crown.  The  figures  for  Mexican  mines  under  the 
Spanish  regime  are  assessor's  figures,  not  the  ciphers 
of  stock-markets.     And   I  wish  to  point  the  serene 

*  The  mine  had  a  good  appetite,  for  one  thing.  Three  of  its 
shafts  cost  $1,800,000. 

f  The  ancient  Tlaxco,  where  was  the  first  "coinage  "  in  the 
New  World.  Certain  little  hatchets  of  bronze  were  made 
there  for  currency.  Whence  the  corrupted  name  "  tlaco  "  or 
"claco"  for  the  smallest  Mexican  copper  coin. 


32  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

truth  that  amid  all  the  splendor,  the  display,  the  cor- 
rupting waste  of  Spanish  mining  in  all  America,  there 
was  never  the  remotest  taint  of  the  cold,  cutthroat 
manipulation  which  has  characterized  "  American " 
mining  after  the  simple  placers.  The  mines  of  Span- 
ish America  always  were  (and  still  are,  except  in  some 
cases  of  foreign  ownership)  worked  as  mines  and  not 
for  the  stock-market.  Perhaps  no  one  can  quite  spell 
the  difference  to  whom  "  Con.  Virginia "  is  but  a 
name. 

It  is  also  fit  to  say  just  here  that  while,  as  in  min- 
ing always,  there  was  tremendously  in  Mexico  (more 
than  with  us,  since  we  have  never  had  at  all  the  same 
conditions  of  labor  in  any  of  our  mining  for  the  precious 
metals)  the  vast  disparity  of  classes,  it  is  wholly  un- 
warranted to  speak  of  the  down-treading  of  the  Indian 
laborers.  They  were  poor  only  as  a  man  is  poor 
whose  enough  is  little.  They  were  not  (despite  the 
arm-chair  historian)  slaves.  There  was  no  mita  in 
Mexico ;  no  compulsory  labor  in  mines ;  no  labor 
without  wages.  The  Indian  who  did  not  like  the 
mine,  or  its  administrador,  or  its  wages,  was  perfectly 
free  to  go  elsewhere  —  or  to  stay  out  altogether. 
"  Nowhere,"  said  Humboldt,  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century,  "  do  the  common  people  enjoy  the  fruits  of 
their  labor  more  than  in  Mexico.  The  Indian  laborer 
is  poor,  but  he  is  free.  His  condition  is  much  prefer- 
able to  that  of  the  peasantry  of  a  large  part  of  northern 
Europe! '* 

In  1557  the  "patio  process"  of  treating  silver  ores 
was  invented  in  Pachuca  by  a  miner  who  deserves  im- 

*  Essai  Politique. 


AMONG   THE   OLD   BONANZAS  33 

mortality,  Bartolome  de  Medina.  About  70  per  cent. 
of  the  silver  mined  in  Mexico  since  has  been  treated 
by  that  process.  In  five  years  Zacatecas  had  already 
thirty-two  haciendas  for  this  method  of  beneficiando. 
All  the  way  up  the  cafion,  from  Marfil  to  Guanajuato, 
these  interesting  establishments  can  be  seen  in  opera- 
tion— the  slow-trundling  dry-crusher,  the  stone-tub 
arrastra  which  grinds  wet,  the  huge  patio  with  its  mud 
"  omelet "  salted  with  quicksilver  and  stirred  by  pa- 
tient blindfold  mules  and  bare-legged  peons.  For  the 
average  silver  ores  of  Mexico  this  is  the  cheapest  and 
best  reduction,  the  normal  loss  being  less  than  6  per 
cent.  This  cafion  of  Marfil  is  as  interestingly  typical 
of  Spanish  America  as  the  like  area  well  can  be.  Its 
roadway,  its  splendidly  walled  ravine,  and  its  feudal 
castles  of  reduction  works  (which  look  rather  less  like 
what  our  mills  are  than  like  what  our  public  buildings 
might  be)  are  impressive  even  to  the  traveller  by  the 
intermittent  mule -car,  and  an  unfading  memory  to 
those  who  seriously  explore  it  all. 

As  at  Zacatecas,  and  for  the  same  reasons,  mining 
in  Guanajuato  is  dull.  Yet  it  goes  on  steadily.  A 
curious  company  (American,  of  course)  has  recently 
been  formed  to  "wash"  the  bed  of  the  little  river — 
down  which,  in  three  centuries  and  a  half,  some  five 
hundred  millions  in  silver  and  mercury  is  computed  to 
have  run  away. 

But  if  the  mines  just  now  lag,  Guanajuato  does 
not.  The  capital  of  its  state,  it  is  the  home  of  a 
good  governor,  and  its  hunchbacked  streets  echo 
progress.  The  city  is  spending  about  $150,003  a  year 
on  municipal  improvements  —  something  fair  for  a 
town  of  25,000;  and  contrast  enough  to  the  bo- 
3 


34  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

nanza  days  when  8000  people  died  in  Guanajuato  of 
famine.* 

The  present  administration  has  completed  the  Tea- 
tro  Juarez,  the  most  splendid  theatre  in  Mexico,  if 
not  in  America.  Beautiful  modern  residences  are 
springing  up  along  the  picturesque  ravine  which  winds 
down  from  the  newer  reservoir  Presa  de  la  Olla.  The 
city  has  a  first-class  high-pressure  water-service,  and,  of 
course,  electric  lights — as  has  every  Mexican  popula- 
tion of  any  consequence.  The  schools  are  populous 
and  prosperous.  The  state  college  has  300  pupils.  The 
ancient  mint,  which  has  coined  so  many  hundreds  of 
millions,  is  still  at  work ;  the  noble  old  churches  (like  the 
Cathedral,  the  Parroquia,  and  San  Diego  with  its  carved 
porphyry)  hold  their  own — and  their  next  neighbor  is  to 
be  a  modern  system  of  sewerage.  It  is  one  of  the  typi- 
cal anachronisms  of  Mexico  the  new — this  picturesque 
city,  which  was  already  luxurious  a  century  before 
any  population  of  20,000  English-speaking  people  was 
in  the  New  World,  still  full  of  its  ancient  landmarks, 
yet  with  the  facilities  of  the  nineteenth  century's  end. 
Telegraph,  telephone,  electric  light,  and  their  concom- 
itants are  everywhere  in  Mexico.  As  for  the  phono- 
graph, an  enterprising  Mexican  lady  lamented  to  me 
the  other  day  that  she  had  lost  several  thousand  dol- 
lars by  her  investment,  the  invention  was  already  so 
vulgarizado  in  all  parts  of  the  republic.  As  for  terri- 
tory, that  tributary  to  Guanajuato  and  Zacatecas  is 
second  to  none  in  the  world — the  richest  silver  depos- 
its and  the  most  fertile  fields  in  alliance.     Nearly  a 

*  A  black  frost  on  the  28th  of  August,  1784,  killed  the  corn. 
In  all  Mexico,  that  year,  300,000  perished  of  the  Hunger. 


AMONG  THE  OLD  BONANZAS  35 

hundred  years  ago  the  greatest  of  cosmographers  de- 
clared that  the  best  lands  of  New  Spain  were  those 
which  stretch  from  Salamanca  past  Silao  to  Leon. 
The  mines,  of  course,  developed  the  vast  garden 
which  to-day  is  the  wonder  of  the  traveller  that  fairly 
measures  it ;  and  now  the  child  supports  its  (tempo- 
rarily, perhaps)  infirm  parent.  It  is  curious  to  remem- 
ber that  ninety-three  years  ago  Guanajuato  was  the 
second  largest  city  in  the  New  World — Mexico  being 
first  and  Havana  third. 

Queretaro — significant  to  the  historian  as  the  last 
page  in  the  tragedy  of  poor,  well-meaning,  weak- 
jawed  Maximilian ;  and  fascinating  to  the  collector  as 
the  home  of  the  most  beautiful  opals  {if  he  knows 
how  to  find  them) — is  no  less  attractive  to  the  econo- 
mist. Its  charming  plaza,  fine  churches,  admirable 
market,  impressive  aqueduct,*  and  rich  associations 
of  history  are  not  so  typical  of  awakening  Mexico 
as  are  its  suburban  industries.  A  scant  league  south 
are  the  magnificent  Hercules  cotton-mills,  the  model 
factory,  perhaps,  of  America ;  and  nearer  the  centre, 
the  hardly  less  important  annexes  for  making  prints* 
etc.  Founded  by  the  Spaniard  Cayetano  Rubio  a 
generation  ago,  at  a  cost  of  several  millions,  these 
mills  are  now  owned  by  a  Spanish-English  stock  com*- 
pany.  Over  1700  operatives  are  employed,  and  every 
department  is  fitted  with  the  finest  modern  machin- 
ery.!    Wages  range  from  twenty-five  cents  a  day  (for 

*  Built  1726-1738,  at  a  cost  of  $124,791. 

t  In  1803  Queretaro  had  twenty  obrdjes  (factories)  and  three 
hundred  home  looms,  consuming  about  eight  hundred  tons  of 
wool  a  year. 


2,6  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

the  cheapest  boys)  up  to  five  dollars,  the  ordinary 
workman  receiving  seventy -five  cents.  I  know  no 
factory  in  the  United  States  which  is  such  a  mission- 
ary of  beauty  to  its  employees.  Its  lovely  patios  of 
tropical  flowers,  its  fountains,  its  $18,000  Carrara  mar- 
ble Hercules  at  the  main  mill,  and  other  fine  statues 
at  the  annexes — these  are  educators  not  many  cor- 
porations give  their  workmen.  But  this  eye  for  the 
artistic  is  rather  habitual  in  Mexico,  and  the  usual 
factory  there  is  beautified  in  a  way  that  would  seem 
absurd  to  many  of  us.  Possibly  such  settings  as  those 
of  Hercules,  of  La  Constancia  (near  Puebla),  of  the 
mills  of  Orizaba,  and  others,  are  not  going  to  affect 
the  mind  of  the  operative.  Possibly,  also,  Evolution 
is  a  fool. 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  present 
Mexico  than  the  multiplying  of  manufactures.  There 
are  countries  in  America  where  million -dollar  factor- 
ies are  not  exactly  springing  up;  but  Mexico  is  of 
another  catalogue.  At  the  falls  of  Juanacatlan — the 
Niagara*  of  Mexico — a  28,000  spindle  cotton-mill,  to 
employ  a  thousand  operatives,  is  just  ready  for  work. 
On  the  Rio  Blanco,  near  Orizaba,  a  four-million-dollar 
cotton-mill  is  building.  About  Puebla  half  a  dozen  are 
going  up,  costing  from  a  quarter  of  a  million  to  a  mill- 
ion apiece,  besides  the  extensive  establishments  which 
have  so  long  prospered  Puebla.  And  so  nearly  all 
over  the  republic.  It  is  significant,  too,  that  this  new 
development  has  yet  barely  begun  in  the  richest  por- 
tions of  Mexico.     If  such  progress  has  come  in  the 

*  If  you  will  oblige  me,  let  us  call  this,  as  its  Indian  god- 
fathers did,  Nee-a-gah-ra ;  and  not  for  the  moment  forget  that 
sonorous  vocable  in  our  flat  corruption  of  it. 


COURT- YARD     OF    THE     POST-OFFICE,    QUERETARO,    ONCE    THE 
CONVENT   OF   SAN   AGUSTIN 


AMONG  THE   OLD   BONANZAS  37 

dry  corners,  what  will  it  be  when  the  tropic  wealth  of 
Guerrero,  Vera  Cruz,  Chiapas,  and  the  like  shall  be 
exploited?  So  many  tourists  judge  Mexico  by  the 
arid  steppes  of  Chihuahua,  Coahuila,  Zacatecas — the 
thousand  half-desert  miles  they  traverse  between  our 
border  and  the  capital — never  guessing  that  while  this 
bare  plateau  is  so  much  of  Mexican  geography,  it  is 
so  little  of  Mexican  resources.  The  huge  and  marvel- 
lously rich  west  coast ;  the  big,  luxuriant  group  of 
southern  states ;  the  smaller  but  magnificent  Gulf  low- 
lands—  these, are  what  are  to  make  Mexico.  No 
other  country  on  this  continent  runs  such  a  gamut  of 
climates,  and  therefore  of  natural  products.  And  the 
nation  which,  ever  since  the  beginnings  of  American 
history,  has  been  pre-eminent  by  her  mines,  is  now  to 
be  richer  in  the  output  of  her  furrows.  If  schools, 
municipal  improvements,  railroad  and  harbor  develop- 
ment, and  factories  have  become  suddenly  epidemic, 
the  renaissance  of  agriculture  is  no  less  remarkable — 
or,  rather,  the  invention ;  for  it  is  the  first  time  in 
Mexican  history  that  the  soil  has  really  been  called 
upon  to  declare  itself. 

The  Spanish  crown  colonized  the  New  World  by 
the  only  effective  policy,  of  which  a  large  feature  was 
the  grant  of  enormous  areas  to  deserving  pioneers. 
It  was  part  of  the  statecraft  which  is  still  the  wonder 
of  the  scholar ;  and  it  was  approved  by  its  result — the 
most  successful  uphill  colonization  in  human  history. 
But  now  America  is  settled,  and  land  grants  and  un- 
taxed principalities  are  outgrown.  For  centuries  the 
revenues  of  Spanish  America  have  been  derived  from 
everything  except  the  one  safe,  ultimate  basis.  Im- 
port and  export  duties,  stamp  acts,  fifths,  license  taxes, 


38  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

inter-state  taxes,  city  front-door  taxes — everything  but 
a  tax  on  land.  For  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  the 
mediaeval  alcabalas  have  been  adding  new  barbs  to  the 
fences  between  state  and  state.  It  was  almost  a  civil 
war  of  finance.  Each  state  made  its  own  duties,  to 
protect  its  own  products  and  discriminate  against 
those  of  its  neighbors.  It  became  almost  as  astound- 
ing an  economic  fetichism  as  the  notion  (said  to  be 
visible  in  a  country  I  have  heard  of)  that  all  you  have 
to  do  to  make  money  "  easy "  is  to  make  plenty  of 
whatever  you  may  choose  to  call  money.  It  is  need- 
less to  add  that  these  inter-state  fences  had  largely 
paralyzed  internal  trade. 

But  all  that  is  swept  away.  Several  years  ago  Diaz 
abolished  the  alcabala  chiquita — the  petty  tax  on  back- 
loads.  On  the  1st  of  July,  1896,  he  put  in  force  the 
most  important  economic  change  that  ever  befell 
Mexico.  For  the  first  time  in  three  and  a  half  cen- 
turies the  garitas  (municipal  customs-gates)  of  all 
Mexico  stood  open  and  unguarded.  The  alcabalas 
were  wiped  out.  Wondering  Indians  with  burro  train 
or  gunwale-deep  chalupa  waited,  sneaked  ahead,  looked 
back  for  some  one  to  rush  out  and  tax  them  for  enter- 
ing town.  They  had  heard  of  it — but  who  would  be 
so  many  fools  as  to  believe  that  there  was  no  more 
toll  at  the  garita  ?  I  watched  the  morning  and  noon 
and  night  of  that  great  day  for  Mexico,  and  it  was  as 
pathetic  as  humorous.  Those  who  have  scoured  the 
republic  with  a  few  gross  of  photographic  plates,  or 
some  like  prey  of  the  local  tax-collector,  can  realize 
what  it  means  to  be  able  now  to  enter  any  city  un- 
harassed,  after  once  being  rcgistrado  at  the  national 
frontier. 


AMONG  THE   OLD  BONANZAS  39 

No  other  one  piece  of  legislation  has  meant  so  much 
for  Mexico ;  and  it  is  characteristic  of  Diaz.  It  has 
been  the  vision  of  a  generation.  No  revolution  since 
the  Rcforma  but  has  had  for  a  chief  rallying  -  cry 
"Down  with  the  alcabalas!"  Yet  any  government 
which  had  dared  abolish  them  would  have  been  over- 
turned in  a  month.  It  means  coming  to  the  sane 
final  tax  on  lands ;  therefore  the  breaking  up  of  the 
enormous  uncultivated  holdings — distinctly  legislation 
favorable  to  the  poor  and  (temporarily)  unfavorable 
to  the  rich — and  it  would  have  meant  a  revolution 
wherever  there  was  a  wealthy  haccndado.  Even  Diaz 
dared  not  make  this  tremendous  innovation  three 
years  earlier.  This  "  dictator  "  is  a  rather  conservative 
ruler.  Through  at  least  a  decade  he  has  waited  pa- 
tiently for  time  to  ripen  to  this  change  ;  and  his  judg- 
ment of  season  is  approved  by  the  result.  These  mill- 
ions of  revenue*  have  to  be  made  up.  It  means  a 
notable  stiffening  of  the  "  direct  contribution  "  ;  but 
though  business-men  have  growled  at  paying  the  im- 
mediate piper,  they  realize  that  the  enormous  internal 
development  which  is  inevitable  under  the  new  dis- 
pensation will  more  than  repay  them. 

By  the  way,  it  is  curiously  significant  of  simpler- 
hearted  stages  of  the  world  how  trades  are  still  differ- 
entiated in  Mexico.  Broadly  speaking,  one  may  know 
a  man's  derivation  by  his  shop ;  for  the  exceptions 
are  only  enough  to  prove  the  rule.  Textile  manufact- 
ures are  controlled  by  Mexicans  and  Spaniards ;  the 
sugar  output  by  Mexicans ;  and,  rather  oddly,  most  of 

*  The  garita  of  the  capital  alone  produced  seven  millions  a 
year. 


40  THE   AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

the  bakers  are  of  the  same  blood.  Brewing  is  in  the 
hands  of  Alsatians.  Shoemaking  is  mostly  done  by 
Mexicans,  with  some  Spaniards ;  and  contractors  and 
dealers  in  material  are  Mexicans.  Plumbers  are  Eng- 
lish ;  bicycle,  sewing-machine,  and  agricultural  imple- 
ment men  mostly  Americans,  of  course  —  as  are  also 
most  of  the  railroad  men.  The  dry  -  goods  trade 
throughout  the  Republic  is  mostly  in  the  hands  of 
Frenchmen ;  so  are  the  tailor  shops.  The  shirtmak- 
ers  are  French  and  Spanish ;  the  large  jewellers  all 
Germans  (and  mostly  Jews),  the  innumerable  small 
ones  Mexican  and  Spanish — a  cropping-out  of  hered- 
ity, perhaps,  from  the  Arabs  who  invented  timepieces. 
The  hardware  shops  are  kept  by  Germans,  the  grocery 
stores  all  by  Spaniards,  the  smithies  by  Mexicans — as 
are  the  tinshops,  saddleries,  and  butcher  shops.  Cigars 
and  cigarettes  (the  only  forms  in  which  Mexican  to- 
bacco is  marketed)  are  manufactured  almost  exclu- 
sively by  Spaniards  and  Mexicans,  though  in  the  capi- 
tal two  important  French  firms  are  now  in  the  trade. 
One  of  the  latter  (the  Baen  Tond)  is  among  the  largest 
and  best  equipped  cigarette  factories  in  the  world.  It 
is  a  co-operative  concern,  with  1300  employees  besides 
the  clerical  force,  runs  150  cigarette  machines,  and 
uses  up  8000  pounds  of  tobacco  a  day.  It  has  its  own 
electric-lighting  plant  and  lithographing  establishment, 
and  its  capital  is  a  million.  It  went  into  the  manu- 
facture of  unglued  cigarettes  while  we  were  still  smok- 
ing five  per  cent,  paste.  Every  Mexican  city  has  still 
its  own  tobacco  factories,  extensive  in  the  aggregate 
at  least,  though  now  scattered  and  averaging  smaller 
than  when  the  weed  was  a  monopoly  of  the  crown. 
In  1803,  for  instance,  the  Royal  Factory  at  Queretaro 


AMONG   THE   OLD   BONANZAS  4 1 

alone  (far  enough  from  the  fields)  had  3000  opera- 
tives, of  whom  1900  were  women,  and  turned  out 
over  $2,200,000  worth  of  cigars  and  cigarettes  a  year. 
These  early  factories,  like  the  vast  majority  of  the 
present  small  ones,  produced  hand -made  goods  ex- 
clusively. 


IV 

SURFACE   GOLD 

FOR  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  Mexico  has  been 
rich  by  not  much  else  than  mines ;  and  a  fantastic, 
perilous  wealth  it  is.  As  every  student  of  mining 
countries  knows,  the  life  is  a  kaleidoscope  of  extraor- 
dinary contrasts ;  crazy  luxury  and  great  misery ;  the 
few  rich,  the  many  poor ;  the  carelessness  of  all  other 
than  money  standards ;  the  looseness  which  accom- 
panies any  form  of  gambling.  It  is  a  glittering,  bar- 
baric life,  but  not  just  what  the  soberest  patriot  would 
wish  to  befall  his  native  country. 

But  to-day — though  it  is  a  conservative  estimate  that 
not  10  per  cent,  of  the  mineral  wealth  of  Mexico  has 
been  exploited — mines  are  becoming  a  secondary  con- 
sideration. Not  that  they  are  failing,  but  that  other  in- 
dustries are  being  born.  Commerce,  growing  through 
the  new  and  costly  harbors  and  the  lavishly  subsidized 
railroads ;  the  product  of  multiplying  mills  ;  the  swift, 
new  development  of  agriculture — these  are  the  safer 
bonanzas  which  are  engaging  more  and  more  attention, 
not  only  from  Mexicans,  but  from  the  increasing  army 
of  foreign  investors.  Cereals  are  always  a  heavy  fac- 
tor in  the  national  output.  Already  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century  they  ran  up  to  about  $24,000,000  a 
year,  which  somewhat  exceeded  the  production  of  pre- 


SURFACE    GOLD  43 

cious  metals;  and  the  disparity  has  rapidly  increased 
since. 

Corn  has  always  been  the  chief  vegetable  product 
of  America,  whence  the  Spanish  conquest  first  gave 
it  to  the  Old  World.  A  century  ago  the  annual  yield 
in  Mexico  was  about  25,000,000  bushels.  It  still 
holds  its  own  as  king  of  cereals  in  this  hemisphere. 

Wheat,  of  course,  is  not  a  native  American.  Its 
first  introduction  to  the  continent  was  in  Mexico.  A 
negro  slave  of  Cortez  found  three  or  four  grains  of  it 
among  the  rice  of  his  rations,  and  planted  them  with 
due  care — before  1530.*  From  this  humble  and  acci- 
dental beginning  great  things  have  come.  In  Europe, 
wheat  produces  about  fivefold  ;  in  Mexico,  anywhere 
from  twenty-two-fold  to  one  hundred-fold.  Its  aver- 
age productiveness  is  in  Mexico  five  times  what  it  is 
in  fertile  France. 

Potatoes,  which  are  native  to  Ecuador  and  Peru, 
were  unknown  in  Mexico  until  after  the  Conquest ; 
but  are  now  produced  in  abundance  and  fine  quality. 
Tomatoes,  as  the  name  implies  (Aztec  "  tomatl  ")  are 
indigenous.  So  is  the  oca  (oxalis  tuberosa),  and  so  are 
cochineal,  f  several  varieties  of  anil  (indigo  ;  the  name 
is  a  corruption  of  the  Arabic  nir-o-nil ;  it  was  the  ink 
of  the  conquist adores  up  to  1550);  and  so  is  the  utile 

*  Thus  antedating  Peru,  where  Dona  Maria  de  Escobar 
planted  a  few  stray  grains  and  distributed  the  crop,  twenty 
kernels  at  a  time,  to  the  colonists.  Fray  Jose  Rixi  introduced 
wheat  into  Ecuador. 

f  This  insect  tenant  of  the  cactus,  now  neglected,  was  of 
enormous  importance  in  olden  Mexico.  At  the  beginning  of 
this  century  the  exports  amounted  to  over  three  million  dol- 
lars.   Cholula  alone  in  1581  produced  100,000  pounds. 


44  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

maguey  (agave  Americana).  This  latter  is  perhaps  the 
most  characteristic  vegetal  product  of  Mexico.  Next 
to  corn  and  the  potato,  it  is  the  most  useful  plant 
of  highland  America.  Nothing  else  in  Mexican  agri- 
culture is  so  striking  as  the  vast  maguey  plantations  — 
which  are  at  their  perfection  in  the  valleys  of  Apam, 
Cholula,  and  Toluca.  It  was  not  only  the  fibre-supply 
for  the  ancient  makers  of  paper,  but  was  already  be- 
fore the  Conquest,  as  it  is  to-day,  the  vegetable  spring 
whence  flowed  the  chief  drink  of  Mexico.  An  idea  of 
its  importance  economically  may  be  had  from  the  fact 
that  the  railroads  centering  in  the  City  of  Mexico  are 
now  receiving  840,000  a  week,  the  year  through,  in 
freights  on  pulque  alone.  Humboldt  noted  an  Indian 
woman  who  died  in  Cholula,  during  his  stay  there, 
and  left  her  heirs  a  maguey  plantation  worth  $80,000. 

Mescal,  the  aloe  brandy,  is  colorless,  high-proof,  and 
quite  undeserving  of  the  jeers  of  travellers  more  con- 
cerned to  be  smart  than  to  be  exact — or  who  sample 
the  worst  they  can  find.  It  is  pure,  less  marked  in 
taste  than  any  unadulterated  grape  brandy,  and, 
though  potent  as  spirits  of  such  proof  are  meant  to 
be,  is  unpursued  by  swollen  after-thoughts.  The  ex- 
cellence of  that  of  Tequila  has  caused  good  mescal  in 
general  (and  sometimes  bad,  among  bad  dealers)  to  be 
called  by  that  marca.  Mescal  already  begins  to  be 
shipped  to  France,  and  will  be  more  so.  It  is  worth 
four  bits  the  gallon,  out-bound,  and  $4  the  bottle  (plus 
label)  when  it  returns  as  cognac  to  the  United  States. 

Cotton  is  foreordained  to  be  one  of  the  chief  pro- 
ductions, as  it  is  already  the  chief  staple  of  manufact- 
ure. It  is  native  to  the  soil,  and  was  cultivated  and 
woven  by  the  prehistoric  Mexicans.     The  production 


SURFACE    GOLD  45 

of  it  is  not  so  large  as  it  should  be — and  as  it  will  be 
when  the  matchless  cotton- lands  from  Sinaloa  to 
Colima  and  along  the  Gulf  coast  shall  come  into  play. 
Mexican  mills  are  at  present  importing  a  million  and 
a  quarter  of  dollars'  worth  of  cotton  from  the  United 
States  annually  ;  but  the  quantity  is  decreasing  about 
30  per  cent,  a  year  as  home  production  advances. 

Coffee  is  just  now  the  shibboleth,  and  great  areas 
are  being  planted.  In  1897  the  coffee  crop  will  be 
twice  what  it  was  in  1896,  and  by  1899  it  will  have 
doubled  again.  In  1894-95  it  had  increased  twenty- 
four-fold  in  nine  years.  To  the  United  States  alone, 
in  the  year  ending  June  30,  1897,  Mexico  sent  near- 
ly 29,000,000  pounds  of  coffee.  It  is  probably  just  as 
well  for  the  foreigner  in  Mexico  to  plant  something 
else  for  the  present  —  bearing  in  mind  the  price  of 
potatoes  in  California  in  '49  and  '50,  and  of  latter-day 
oranges.  Mexican  coffee  bears  comparison  with  any  in 
the  world,  and  is  already  largely  cutting  into  our  im- 
ports from  Brazil  and  Guatemala ;  but  markets  never 
thank  those  that  hurry  them. 

Chocolate  has  a  great  future  in  Mexico,  as  it  had  a 
prehistoric  past.  Its  very  name  is  Aztec — chdco-latl. 
It  was  a  favorite  drink  there  500  years  ago ;  and  the 
cacao  nuts  were  the  first  Mexican  currency.  To  this 
day  no  one  knows  the  inner  meaning  of  a  cup  of 
chocolate  who  has  not  been  initiated  in  Mexico  or 
Peru.  Thousands  of  square  miles  of  Mexico  are  per- 
fectly adapted  to  the  growing  of  cacao ;  but  at  pres- 
ent little  attention,  relatively,  is  paid  this  promising 
crop.  The  same  may  be  said  of  vanilla,  another  na- 
tive product.  Most  of  what  is  raised  comes  from 
Vera  Cruz  and  Oaxaca. 


46  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

Financially  one  of  the  most  important  vegetal  prod- 
ucts of  Mexico,  in  esse  and  still  more  in  posse,  is  to- 
bacco.* The  average  American  knows  about  his  cigar 
— what  it  cost;  and  prefers  to  smoke  a  name.  In 
time,  however,  he  will  learn.  Mexico  raises  tobaccos 
of  the  finest  quality — as  well  as  many  that  are  medium. 
The  weed  of  Tepic  is  admirable ;  that  of  San  Andres 
de  Tuxtla  superior  ;  and  as  for  Huimanguillo,  there  are 
not  a  dozen  Habana  brands  that  come  anywhere  near 
it.  In  Mexico  an  American  can  buy  for  five  cents 
gold  literally  the  best  "  smoke  "  he  ever  knew ;  and 
for  two  cents  far  better  than  he  is  accustomed  to  at 
home.  As  for  the  universal  cigarette,  a  very  ill  sort 
(yet  better  than  our  best)  may  be  had  in  Chihuahua, 
native ;  whereas  some  marcas  of  Orizaba  and  Vera 
Cruz  are,  without  exception,  peerless.  Mexican  tobac- 
co, though  mostly  consumed  at  home,  is  making  head- 
way against  tradition.  For  the  year  ending  June  30, 
1897,  we  bought  in  the  United  States  nearly  $300,000 
worth  of  it — an  increase  of  about  95  per  cent,  over  the 
year  preceding. 

Rubber — which  becomes  more  important  every 
year,  as  we  need  more  and  find  less — is  an  industry 
barely  born  in  Mexico.  There  are  but  two  planta- 
tions of  over  5000  trees ;  yet  millions  of  acres  in  the 
republic  are  as  perfectly  adapted  to  caoutchouc-cult- 
ure as  the  most  favored  spots  in  the  Amazonas  of 
Peru.  It  grows  wild  on  the  Pacific  slope  of  Oaxaca ; 
in  Chiapas,  the  Tabasco,  Campeche,  Tuxtepec  (up  to 
the  river  Quiotepec),  on  the  Coatzacoalcos,  etc.     The 

*  It  is  curious  that  this  now  universal  word  is  Arua,  and  na- 
tive of  Hayti.  It  properly  means  pipe.  The  Nahuatl  name  of 
the  leaf  is  yetl ;  the  Incas  called  it  sairi. 


SURFACE    GOLD  47 

enormous  backbone  of  Mexico — the  2000-mile  north- 
central  plateau,  of  4000  to  8000  feet  elevation — is  al- 
ready an  important  cereal  country,  and  scientific  irri- 
gation, such  as  we  have  in  California  and  Arizona, 
will  vastly  multiply  its  product.  Every  fruit  grows 
in  Mexico ;  broadly  speaking,  no  fruit  whatever  (ex- 
cept strawberries)  has  ever  been  really  cultivated 
there.  I  have  never  found  a  strictly  first-class  orange 
below  the  Tropic  of  Cancer;  but  when  the  grower 
shall  learn  to  prune  and  cultivate,  there  is  no  knowing 
what  he  may  harvest.  Bernal  Diaz  introduced  the 
orange  into  Mexico  over  three  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  but  until  recently  it  has  never  cut  a  large  figure 
for  exportation.  This  year  the  sister  republic  sends 
us  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars'  worth, 
marking  an  annual  increase  of  about  20  per  cent,  in 
the  industry.  If  culture  does  for  fruit  here  what  it 
has  done  elsewhere,  Mexico  —  so  much  nearer  our 
great  markets — is  like  to  have  something  to  say  in 
them,  to  the  distinct  disadvantage  of  certain  remoter 
sources  of  present  supply. 

As  for  strawberries,  Izaak  Walton  should  have  lived 
to  visit  the  Irapuato  of  to-day.  Not  so  much  for  the 
six-pound  basket  oi  f resets  he  can  buy  at  the  train  for 
two  bits — and  the  basket  alone  is  worth  that — but  to 
go  to  the  gardens.  There  he  would  conclude  that 
God  not  only  could  but  did  make  a  better  berry 
than  the  angler's  friend  ever  knew. 

This  is  but  a  small  enumeration  of  the  agricultural 
riches  of  Mexico,  though  it  covers  the  large  items. 
It  omits  the  precious  woods  (and  in  dyewoods  alone  the 
one  state  of  Campeche  does  a  million  dollar  business 
yearly) ;  the  silk -culture,  to  which  large  areas  are  per- 


48  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

fectly  adapted  ;*  rice,  which  will  be  a  great  matter; 
cane-sugar,  which  is  manufactured  on  an  enormous 
and  fast- rising  scale,  the  venerable  trapiches  giving 
way  to  modern  machinery,!  and  a  score  of  other  im- 
portant products.  Between  the  extremes  of  its  mar- 
vellous climatic  range  from  tierra  caliente  to  tierra 
fria,  Mexico  can  produce,  and  commercially,  not  alone 
every  article  she  needs  for  herself,  but  (as  Humboldt 
justly  observed)  every  crop  known  to  the  civilized 
world.  Despite  its  latitude,  two -thirds  of  its  lands 
belong  to  the  temperate  zone,  and  only  one-third  to 
the  tropics.  Sitting  astride  the  longest  mountain 
system  on  earth,  its  head  touches  the  eternal  snows, 
while  its  feet  dabble  in  seas  of  everlasting  summer. 
It  is  competent  to  support — and  well — a  population  of 
at  least  seventy-five  millions. 

These  observations  are  sketchy,  but  they  are  typical 
indices  of  the  new  life  in  the  northern  and  poorer  half 
of  the  republic.  To  understand  broadly  all  the  mean- 
ing of  this  regeneration,  one  must  come  intelligently  to 
the  palatial  city  which  has  been  by  turns  Tenochtitlan, 
the  ancient  pueblo  of  the  Nahuatl  confederacy ;  the 
gorgeous  capital  of  the  viceroys  ;  and  (now)  the  model 
of  a  nation — the  head  and  heart  of  modern  Mexico. 

*  In  the  summer  of  1896,  a  striking  display  of  silk-growing 
was  made  in  Irapuato  with  due  rejoicing,  where  Hipolito 
Chambon  is  father  of  the  modern  industry.  Cortez  himself  in- 
troduced the  mulberry  and  silkworm  ;  and  by  1560  there  was  a 
considerable  production  of  silk  about  Puebla,  Panuco,  and 
Oaxaca. 

t  The  first  cafia  duke  in  the  New  World  was  planted  in  Santo 
Domingo  by  Pedro  de  Atienza  in  1520,  and  soon  spread  to 
Cuba  and  Mexico.  Cortez  built  a  crushing-mill  near  Cuyua- 
can,  and  devised  it  to  his  heirs. 


V 
THE    HEART   OF   THE   NATION 

It  has  pleased  that  certain  class  of  historians  whose 
emotions  swell  with  distance  and  the  dark  to  depict 
the  Spaniard  as  having  destroyed  some  Utopian  civil- 
ization of  the  Aztecs  and  replaced  it  with  his  inferior 
own.  To  this  amiable  freak  of  prejudice  and  the  arm- 
chair there  is  but  one  competent  answer — go  and  see. 
In  science,  at  least,  we  are  lapsing  from  that  fine  hon- 
esty of  the  good  old  times  when  it  was  deemed  per- 
fectly fit  to  play  Recording  Angel  to  lands  and  peoples 
we  had  never  clapped  eye  on.  Thanks  to  the  non- 
romantic  school,  wherein  Lewis  H.  Morgan  and  his 
cumulative  successors  have  replaced  closet  guess-work 
and  rhetorical  trances  with  common-sense  and  docu- 
mentary research  and  the  field,  we  know  now  just 
what  the  "empire"  of  "Montezuma"  was.  It  is  in- 
structive to  stand  here  in  the  heart  of  what  was  once 
the  chief  pueblo  of  the  Nahuatl  confederacy — of 
tribes  banded  for  immunity  in  robbing  their  neighbors 
— and  look  and  remember. 

Civilization  is  measured  by  its  fruits  of  hand  and 
head  and  heart.  Just  yonder  was  the  reeking  teocalli, 
upon  whose  pyramid  five  hundred  captives  in  a  day 
had  their  still  contracting  hearts  flung  before  Huitzilo- 
pochtli,  and  their  carcasses  kicked  down  the  staircase 
4 


50  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

to  be  ceremonially  devoured  by  the  multitude — where 
stands  now  the  largest  Christian  church  in  America, 
and  one  of  the  noblest.  To  the  left,  on  the  ground 
where  dwelt  the  war- chief  —  head  of  a  government 
Avhose  principal  politics  was  to  massacre,  enslave,  and 
rob  the  neighbor  tribes — is  to-day  the  venerable  Mount 
of  Pity,  one  of  the  most  beneficent  charities  in  any 
land.  In  front,  among  stores  rich  in  every  product  of 
modern  commerce,  is  the  hall  of  a  city  government 
which  has  for  centuries  cared  for  the  needy,  restrained 
the  rich,  and  spent  vast  sums  in  municipal  improve- 
ments for  health,  security,  comfort,  and  even  aesthetic 
training.  To  the  right  is  the  palace,  occupied  for  cen- 
turies by  a  central  government  which  at  its  worst  was 
far  more  merciful,  more  intelligent,  and  more  progres- 
sive than  any  tribal  organization  ever  knew.  Within 
revolver-shot  are  the  cradles  of  printing,  education,  art, 
and  organized  charity  in  the  New  World;  for  all  these 
things  came  a  century  and  a  half  to  two  centuries  and 
a  half  earlier  in  Mexico  than  in  the  United  States. 
Bishop  Zumarraga  set  up  here,  in  1536,  the  first  print- 
ing-press in  the  Western  Hemisphere;  one  did  not 
reach  the  English  colonies  till  1638. 

In  1584  this  same  pioneer  press  printed  the  first 
music  in  America.  The  first  New  World  attempt  at 
a  newspaper  was  the  Merairio  Volante  (Flying  Mer- 
cury), Mexico,  1693 — about  a  dozen  years  ahead  of 
our  colonies.* 

Here  are  the  first  American  schools,  colleges,  mu- 
seums, hospitals,  asylums — even  schools  and  training- 

*  And  antedating  the  Didrio  Erudito  of  Peru,  and  its  suc- 
cessor, the  Mercurio  Peruano,  by  about  a  century. 


HUITZILOPOCHTLI 


THE   HEART  OF  THE  NATION  5 1 

schools  for  Indians;*  even  hospitals  for  Indians  and 
negroes.  In  the  year  1803,  by-the-way,  the  hospitals 
of  the  City  of  Mexico  had  already  an  aggregate  of  1 100 
beds.  It  is  entirely  safe  to  say  that  no  other  city  in 
the  world  with  the  population  (then  about  140,000) 
could  match  this.  Certainly  no  city  of  ours  approaches 
that  proportion  to-day. 

On  every  side,  where  were  the  squat  adobes  of  the 
Indian  pueblo,  is  now  an  architecture  we  have  nothing 
to  parallel ;  and  only  those  who  have  never  seen  either 
could  dream  of  comparing  the  brute  bulk  of  Aztec 
architecture  (wonderful  as  it  was  for  man  in  the  tribal 
relation)  with  the  magnificent  art  which  has  succeeded 
it.  Here  is  still,  as  Humboldt  found  it,  "the  city  of 
palaces  " ;  possibly  even  yet,  as  he  declared  it,  "  the 
handsomest  capital  in  America."  And  instead  of  im- 
molating its  outside  Indians  upon  porphyry  altars,  the 
new  dispensation  has  (though  not  without  friction  and 
blunders)  saved  and  educated  them  to  be  citizens  all, 
and  among  them  important  scholars,  great  engineers, 
and  sometime  presidents  of  a  republic.  To  grasp  just 
how  much  this  means  of  contrast  between  the  methods 
of  the  noble  Saxon  and  the  brutal  Spaniard,  we  need 
only  fancy  ourselves  electing  Tecumseh  or  Red  Cloud 
or  Osceola  to  be  President  of  the  United  States.  We 
might  also  hunt  up  the  churches  that  we  have  built 
for  our  aborigines  while  Mexico  was  building  thou- 
sands.    And  we  might  even  ponder  upon  the  250,000 

*  The  first  Indian  school  was  founded  in  1524  by  the  Belgian 
fraile,  Pedro  de  Gante  (said  to  have  been  a  natural  son  of 
Charles  V.).  It  stood  where  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  now  is. 
The  industrial  schools  for  Indians  date  back  to  1543. 


52  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

Indians  left  of  our  millions,*-  while  it  is  a  proved  fact 
that  the  Indian  population  not  only  of  Mexico,  but  of 
Spanish  America  by-and-large,  is  greater  to-day  than  at 
the  Conquest — and  incomparably  better  off.  This  is 
little  to  say  of  what  might  be  said,  but  it  is  enough  for 
a  small  finger-post  towards  common-sense. 

That  a  great  city  has  been  able  at  all  to  persist  for 
three  hundred  and  seventy-seven  years  (on  top  of  sev- 
eral centuries  as  a  pueblo  of,  at  last,  20,000)  in  the 
bottom  of  a  natural  sink,  undrained  and  unredeemed 
of  its  own  past,  is  the  tallest  possible  tribute  to  the 
climate  of  Mexico.  The  half  such  mockery  of  hy- 
gienic laws  would  be  impossible  in  any  city  of  ours 
east  of  Denver.  But  altitude  and  aridity  are  miracle- 
workers,  and  Mexico  has  needed  their  best.  She  has 
had  fearful  epidemics  in  the  far  past,  and  sufficient 
insalubrity  in  the  present.  At  last,  however,  the  san- 
itary corner  is  turned  in  so  long  a  lane.  The  vast 
swamp  which  was  the  Valley  of  Mexico  (for  these  shal- 
low lagoons  were  not  seriously  "  lakes  ")  is  drained. 

So  early  as  1607  the  agitation  for  an  outlet  came  to 
a  head,  after  a  generation  of  discussion.  There  was 
by  then,  of  course,  no  dream  anywhere  of  sanitary 
sewerage ;  but  relief  was  demanded  from  the  storm- 
water  floods  from  the  mountain  cordon  which  rims 
this  fertile  bowl.  Some  of  these  inundations  were 
terribly  serious  ;  particularly  those  of  1553,  1580,  1604, 
1607,  and  1629.  Under  the  Viceroy  Don  Luis  Velas- 
co,  2,  and  on  the  plans  of  the  eminent  engineer  En- 

*  And  the  great  majority  of  those  are  in  the  territory  con- 
trolled by  Spain  till  within  half  a  century. 


THE   FIRST   PRINTING-OFFICE   IN   THE   NEW   WORLD   (1536) 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  NATION  53 

rique  Martinez,  Royal  Cosmographer,  the  herculean 
tajo  of  Nochistongo*  was  riven  through  the  northern 
hills  to  drain  the  valley  into  a  branch  of  the  Rio  Pa- 
nuco.  This  cut  (traversed  to-day  by  the  tourist  in  his 
Pullman)  is  a  dozen  miles  long,  with  an  average  depth 
of  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet,  and  an  average 
width  of  about  three  hundred.  It  cost  great  mortali- 
ty and  six  millions,  and  was  a  rather  fair  contract  to 
be  let  in  America  two  hundred  and  ninety  years  ago — 
the  very  year,  indeed,  in  which  the  first  English  col- 
ony camped  on  the  fringe  of  the  New  World. 

*  Work  on  this  enterprise  began  November  28,  1607.  The- 
Viceroy  himself  (Marques  de  Salinas)  struck  the  first  blow  of 
the  pickaxe ;  15,000  Indians  were  employed  in  the  work ;  and 
September  17,  1608,  the  first  waters  ran  through  the  great  tun- 
nel. In  December  the  Viceroy  and  the  Archbishop  inspected 
the  work ;  and  the  former  rode  horseback  more  than  a  mile 
into  the  tunnel,  which  was  fifteen  feet  wide  and  thirteen  high. 
It  caved  so  seriously  that  Martinez  arched  it  with  brick  ma- 
sonry. In  1629  a  greenhorn  Viceroy  ordered  the  tunnel  closed, 
to  see  if  Mexico  really  could  be  flooded.  His  curiosity  was 
satisfied  when  the  water  stood  a  yard  deep  in  the  streets ;  and 
he  promptly  imprisoned  Martinez  !  The  capital  remained  thus 
inundated  for  five  years,  and  street  travel  was  by  boats.  For 
the  second  time  the  Spanish  crown  ordered  the  city  removed 
to  the  mainland,  near  Tacubaya ;  but  as  the  property  valuation 
was  already  over  forty  million  dollars,  the  cidula  was  revoked. 
After  this  great  flood,  the  tunnel  of  Nochistongo  was  gradual- 
ly converted  into  an  open  cut — the  largest  ever  made  by  the 
hand  of  man.  The  whole  vacillating  tale  lasted  till  1789. 
There  were  engineers  enough  and  good  enough  ;  but  even 
good  Viceroys  were  not  quite  fitted  for  meddling.  Already  in 
1598,  by  the  way,  the  licenciado  Obregon  and  maestro  Arci- 
niega  had  proposed  a  drainage  tunnel  under  the  ridge  between 
Sincoque  and  Nochistongo. 


54  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

This  vast  work,  however,  did  not  cut  deep  enough 
to  serve  the  valley.  Various  minor  attempts  were 
made — in  1612  we  find  Felipe  III.  laying  a  tax  of  a 
cuartillo  (three  cents)  on  every  pint  of  wine  sold  in 
the  capital,  the  proceeds  to  go  to  the  drainage,  and 
there  were  many  other  imposts,  but  nothing  effective 
resulted  in  two  centuries  and  a  half. 

With  the  accession  of  Diaz  to  the  presidency,  twenty 
years  ago,  the  imminent  necessity  of  an  outlet  found 
recognition,  and  work  was  again  begun — though  lack 
of  funds  kept  it  limping  for  a  decade.  Since  1886, 
however,  it  has  had  its  Junta  Directiva  and  its  fixed 
revenues,  and  has  gone  steadily  forward.  Mexican 
engineers  were  divided  as  to  whether  it  would  be  bet- 
ter to  utilize  the  tremendous  gash  of  Nochistongo  or 
begin  de  nuevo  in  an  opposite  direction ;  and  the  lat- 
ter opinion  won. 

As  I  write,  the  greatest  drainage  canal  in  the  world 
is  finished.  Mexico  will  never  again  be  flooded  ;  and 
in  a  short  time  it  will  have  the  more  intimate  daily 
advantages  that  an  outlet  means. 

Next  to  President  Diaz,  this  magnificent  work  is 
owed  to  the  skill  and  faith  of  another  significant  type 
of  modern  Mexico.  Luis  Espinosa,  engineer  of  the 
Desagiie,  is  a  Guanajuatan  of  the  humblest  birth, 
largely  Indian  by  blood,  and  of  few  early  advantages. 
But  when  he  assumed  the  work  (in  1879)  tne  canal 
found  its  master.  Through  years  of  discouragement 
— wherein  he  sometimes  lacked  not  only  money  for 
his  army  of  laborers,  but  food  for  his  family  —  the 
mute,  brown  engineer  held  his  way  like  the  man  he 
is ;  and  the  end  has  crowned  his  work. 

The  Desagiie  is  forty-seven  kilometres  five  hundred 


jfel 


PRESIDENT    DIAZ    AND     HIS    PARTY    INSPECTING    THE   DESAGUE 
MOUTH    OF    THE    TUNNEL    OF    ZUMPANGO 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  NATION  55 

and  eighty  metres  long.  It  begins  on  the  east  side  of 
the  city,  six  metres  wide,  and  a  little  over  five  metres 
below  the  level  of  the  Plaza.  These  dimensions  grow 
steadily,  until  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  tunnel  of 
Zumpango,  which  bores  the  last  hill  to  the  ravine  of 
Tequizquiac,  it  is  one  hundred  and  ninety -five  feet 
wide,  and  nearly  seventy-five  feet  deep.  The  tunnel 
is  eleven  kilometres  long,  an  oval  a  little  over  thir- 
teen feet  in  its  greater  diameter,  and,  being  in  par- 
ticularly treacherous  soil,  is  heavily  masonried 
throughout.  Its  air-shafts  are  thirteen  hundred  feet 
apart,  and  the  deepest  is  four  hundred  feet.  The  gra- 
dient is  one  in  one  thousand,  which  gives  a  current  of 
seven  feet  a  second.  The  fall  of  the  rest  of  the  canal 
is  one  foot  to  the  mile.  The  whole  work  cost  eigh- 
teen millions,  and  has  been  completed  without  fatal- 
ities. 

Like  every  other  mejora  of  his  capital  and  nation, 
the  Desague  has  not  only  the  master's  moral  support, 
but  his  eye.  Diaz  inspects  the  work  frequently  ;  and, 
as  I  have  seen,  his  inspections  are  nowise  perfunctory. 
He  is  first  at  every  point — few  of  the  visiting  party 
have  half  his  legs  at  half  his  years,  and  none  his  com- 
prehensive eye. 

This  outlet  canal  done,  the  next  step  is  modern 
saneamiento  for  the  capital.  Mexico  is  to  have  at 
once  the  most  perfect  sewerage  system  on  the  conti- 
nent, if  not  in  the  world.  The  plans  are  drawn  by 
the  competent  municipal  engineer  Roberto  Gayol,  the 
money  is  ready,  and  the  mains  are  being  built. 

In  a  few  months,  also,  the  city  will  own  the  most 
complete  modern  hospital  in  America — ending  as  well 
as  she  began. 


56  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A   NATION 

Cortez  the  conqueror  has  no  monument  in  the  in- 
gratitude of  republics — partly  because  so  soon  as  in 
ninety  years  we  can  hardly  be  expected  to  forgive  the 
mother-nation  from  whom  we  have  revolted,  and  part- 
ly because  of  the  present  funnily  serious  disposition 
to  deify  the  original  aborigine*  whom  Cortez  conquered 
and  bettered ;  no  monument,  that  is,  except  the  hos- 
pital he  founded — and  incidentally  Mexico.  On  the 
street  of  Ixtapalapa  by  whose  causeway  he  first  en- 
tered town  (November  8,  15 19)  he  built  in  1527  the 
Hospital  of  the  Clean  Conception  of  Jesus,+  endowing 
it  with  an  hacienda  in  Cuernavaca.  For  three  hun- 
dred and  seventy  years  it  has  been  doing  its  work  of 
mercy;  and  to-day  its  appointments  are  up  to  date, 

*  Or  so  much  of  him  as  dwelt  in  the  pueblo  of  Tenochtitlan. 
Oddly  enough,  the  new  theogony  includes  no  heroes  from  Tlas- 
cala,  or  Chalco,  or  Orizaba,  or  Totonaco,  or  from  any  other 
Mexican  tribes  which  lived  by  their  own  industry,  and  not  by 
enslaving  their  neighbors.  They  welcomed  the  Spaniards  who 
delivered  them  from  the  Aztec  yoke. 

|  The  inscription  upon  the  outer  wall  reads  (translated) : 

Hospital 

of 

The  Clean  Conception 

of  Mary  Most  Holy 

And  Jesus  the  Nazarene. 

The  most  ancient  of  the  nation. 

Founded 

In  this  location,  famous  in  the 

Gentile  days  under  the  name  of 

huitzillan, 

About  the  Year  1527. 

Renewed  and  repaired  in 

that  of  1838. 


THE    BEST-AUTHENTICATED    PORTRAIT    OF    CORTEZ 
(Presented  by  the  Conqueror  to  the  Hospital  de  Jesus) 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  NATION  $? 

with  accommodation  and  lovely  environment  for  sev- 
enty-five patients  of  both  sexes.  It  is  still  controlled 
by  the  descendants  of  Cortez,  and  contains  the  two 
paintings  upon  which  we  depend  for  our  portraits  of 
him.  The  kneeling  figure,  in  the  sala,  was  painted  in 
Spain  for  him,  and  sent  by  himself  to  this  hospital.* 
The  standing  figure,  in  the  little  chapel,  being  inferior 
in  art  and  authenticity,  is  naturally  the  one  most 
copied. 

One  cannot  even  list  here  the  philanthropic  institu- 
tions of  the  capital,  much  less  describe  them.  But  it 
is  proper  to  point,  in  passing,  at  once  their  oldness 
and  their  newness — the  Spanish  of  them  and  their 
modern  Mexicanism.  No  other  nation  has  founded 
so  extensively  such  beneficences  in  its  colonies,  and 
few  colonies  have  built  so  well  upon  their  inheritance. 
It  is  a  useful  Delsartean  attitude  for  the  mind  to  try 
to  "fahncy"  England  peppering  New  England  with 
schools,  hospitals,  asylums,  and  churches  for  Indians. 
But  that  is  what  infamous  Spain  did,  three  hundred 
years  ago,  up  and  down  a  space  which  measures  some- 
thing over  one  hundred  and  three  New  Englands.  We 
may  pick  flaws  in  these  institutions  as  administered 

*  The  inscription  in  one  corner  of  this  painting  reads,  when 
Englished : 

The  Most  Excellent  Sir  Don  Fer- 
nando Cortez,  Mar- 
ques del  Valle,  Chief  Justice, 
Governor  and  Captain-General  that 
was  of  this  New  Spain,  and  its  first 
Conqueror,  Patron  and  Found- 
er of  this  illustrious 
Hospital. 


58  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

while  we  were  hanging  witches,  but  the  institutions 
were  there — and  are  there  yet. 

The  Royal  Hospital  of  Mexico  (for  Indians)  was 
founded  in  1553.  It  covered  three  and  a  half  acres — 
good  elbow-room  for  its  normal  two  hundred  and 
twenty  patients.  In  the  great  epidemic  of  1762,  by 
crowding,  it  cared  for  eight  thousand  three  hundred 
and  sixty-one ;  and  it  is  still  operative.  This  is  but 
a  beginning  in  the  list.  The  hospital  of  San  Andres 
was  founded  in  1626.  The  Hospital  Judrez  occupies  a 
college  founded  in  1575.  The  Beneficencia  Publica 
alone  has  charge  of  ten  institutions  in  the  city,  on 
which  it  expends  $25,000  a  month — like  the  Industrial 
School,  the  School  of  Correction  (also  industrial), 
the  Asylum  of  the  Poor  (whose  plain  exterior  hides  a 
truly  beautiful  home  for  the  nine  hundred  inmates, 
mostly  children,  who  are  educated  and  given  useful 
trades  in  an  atmosphere  of  flowers  and  music ;  it  was 
founded  in  1765,  and  was  really  a  training  school  for 
Indian  children);  a  hospital  for  the  wounded;  a  ma- 
ternity hospital  (founded  by  Carlota  in  1865);  a  school 
for  the  blind ;  an  insane  asylum  for  men,  another  for 
women — and  so  on.  It  feeds  three  thousand  four 
hundred  people,  and  supervises  the  public  sale  of 
drink  and  food.  There  are  also  many  and  excellent 
private  institutions  of  charity,  supported  by  the  con- 
tributions of  the  wealthy.  When  the  great  new  hos- 
pital— on  the  French  detached  plan,  with  thirty-five 
buildings  fifty  feet  apart,  at  a  cost  of  $800,000 — is 
completed,  the  present  hospitals,  all  of  which  are  very 
valuable  properties,  will  be  sold. 


VI 

NEW   WINE   IN    OLD    BOTTLES 

And  here  a  word  may  be  spoken  in  season  of  the 
beggars  who  so  dent  the  sensibilities  of  the  average 
tourist.  One  reason  why  mosquitoes  seem  so  numer- 
ous is  that  we  cannot  get  away  from  them.  So  with 
the  Mexican  beggar.  Wherever  you  go  you  see  all 
there  is  of  him;  and  meeting  fifty  people  of  whom 
two  are  beggars,  you  naturally  conclude  that  the  same 
proportion  holds  good  throughout  the  whole  popula- 
tion. But  this  is  a  generic  blunder.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  long  field  study  in  both  lines  leads  to  a  convic- 
tion that  there  are  probably  not  so  many  professional 
beggars  per  cent,  in  Mexico  as  tramps  in  the  United 
States.  But  the  tramp  is  never  concentric,  and  only 
the  curious  student,  the  railroad  man  on  a  transconti- 
nental line,  and  the  police  authority  dream  how  enor- 
mous is  our  army  of  mendicants.  The  Mexican  por- 
diosero*  too,  has  a  different  stock  in  trade.  His 
capital  is  to  look  as  poor,  diseased,  and  repulsive  as  he 
possibly  can — maybe  with  a  vague  intuition  that  the 
pneumogastric  nerve  has  a  large  voice  in  the  congress 
of  the  emotions.  He  has  not  learned  the  broader  plat- 
form of  insolence,  bulldozing,  and  alternative  crime. 

*  "  For-God's-sake-er,"  literally. 


60  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

He  clings  to  the  traditions  of  his  craft — for  it  is  a.  pro- 
fession, and  inclined  to  be  a  gentle  one.  He  whines, 
it  is  true — because  he  is  of  a  people  to  whom  a 
whine  sounds  pitiful,  and  not  contemptible  —  but 
his  appeal  is  as  perfect  in  its  fine  rhetoric  as  in  its 
humility.  And  when  you  have  bestowed  the  cop- 
per tlaco,  which  is  all  that  he  expects,  he  says  (sin- 
cerely and  without  a  dream  of  irony),  "  God  give 
more  to  you!"  Mexico  has  as  many  poor  as  any 
other  city  of  350,000  I  know — and  more  than  any  in 
the  United  States  —  but  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  vast  majority  of  them  are  laborers,  and  only 
the  petty  minority  beggars.  As  for  actual  suffering, 
there  is  far  less  than  in  any  of  our  urban  popula- 
tions. Even  the  beggar's  coppers  are  plenty  to  pro- 
vide him  with  the  indispensables  of  life  in  a  motherly 
climate. 

From  beggars  to  churches  is  but  a  step — at  least  in 
physics,  since  the  church  door  is  a  favorite  stalking- 
ground  for  these  shrewd  reckoners  of  the  emotions. 
The  temples  of  the  capital  are  by  class  the  most  inev- 
itable buildings  in  it — not  only  for  the  old  heroism 
they  represent,  nor  solely  for  their  architectural  beauty, 
great  as  it  is.  The  Samson  of  a  cathedral  is  shorn  of 
its  locks.  The  third  course  of  its  towers  (two  hundred 
and  eight  feet  high,  as  they  stand)  was  forbidden  by 
royal  edict  to  be  erected,  for  fear  of  the  effect  of  so 
vast  a  weight  upon  the  treacherous  soil  of  the  ex- 
swamp.  It  is  a  pity,  for  this  is  the  only  outer  fault 
of  a  magnificent  pile ;  and  since  it  stands  on  the  rock 
islet  of  the  teocalli,  the  due  proportions  of  the  towers 
migh't  have  been  carried  out  without  probable  danger 
of  the  sinking  which  has  so  tilted  the  beautiful  Profesa, 


NEW  WINE  IN   OLD   BOTTLES  6l 

Tolsa's  classic  Loreto,  and  many  of  the  older  other 
buildings.* 

The  Jesuit,  Dominican,  and  Franciscan  schools  of 
church  architecture  have  here  their  most  perfect  con- 
vention (though  not  in  every  case  the  greatest  known 
delegate) ;  and  there  is,  besides,  the  striking  type  pe- 
culiar to  this  city,  the  style  Churrigueresque,  named 
for  a  native  architect  of  the  seventeenth  century,  whose 
finest  monuments  are  the  Sagrario  (elbowing  the  ca- 
thedral) and  La  Santisima.  Their  fachadas,  and  the 
patio  of  the  ex-convent  of  San  Agustin  (now  the  post- 
office  of  Queretaro),  present  the  most  remarkable 
stone-carving  in  North  American  architecture.  That 
is  no  small  thing  to  say  when  one  remembers  the 
thousands  of  churches  in  Mexico,  of  which  hardly  one 
lacks  some  noble  characteristic.  Content  is  a  happy 
trait,  but  I  doubt  if  such  content  is  happy  as  is  past 
being  startled  by  the  comparison  of  our  religious  edi- 
fices with  those  of  a  disprized  land  and  faith. 

It  is  curious  to  speculate  whence  came  the  pentecost 
of  skill  and  daring  which  not  only  made  every  church 
a  monument,  but  in  so  many  seems  to  have  delighted 
in  braving  the  constructional  traditions.  The  flat 
arches,  the  flying  arches,  the  arches  with  space  in- 
stead of  masonry  to  receive  their  "  lateral  thrust,"  the 
pendent  staircases,  the  omitted  pillars,  the  keyless 
domes — there  are  a  thousand  venturesomenesses,  yet 
not  one  lapse  from  security.     And  to  these  days  some 

*  The  cathedral  was  founded  by  Cortez  in  honor  of  Nuestra 
Sefiora  de  la  Asuncion,  but  the  original  church  was  razed  be- 
fore 1600  to  make  room  for  the  present  edifice,  which  is  393  by 
192  feet,  with  a  height  of  184  feet  from  the  floor  to  key  of 
dome. 


62  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

architects  in  Mexico  pluck  gravitation  by  the  beard 
in  a  fashion  that  is  not  familiar  to  me  outside  of 
Latin  America.  For  example,  Ajea's  staircase  in  the 
palace,  and  Jesus  Palma's  series  of  arches  in  the  Ho- 
tel Humboldt — thirty  feet  span  and  nine  inches  spring. 

The  caracoles,  or  snail-shell  stone  staircases,  are  al- 
ways fascinating ;  and  they  are  in  nearly  every  tower. 
That  in  the  prison  of  Hidalgo,  in  Chihuahua,  is  the 
common  type;  but  the  cathedral  of  Mexico  has  a 
wonderful  caracol  without  a  core.  The  ninety -two 
chiluca  steps,  instead  of  concentring  to  form  a  pillar, 
form  a  central  hole,  and  down  that  superb  spiral  one 
can  peer  from  top  to  bottom. 

But,  as  I  was  to  say,  religion  nor  architecture  nor 
historic  association  is  the  only  attraction  to  these 
venerable  piles.  To  do  much  of  anything  of  impor- 
tance in  the  modern  city,  one  must  go  to  church. 
The  Reforma  was  a  movement  in  whose  swift  thor- 
oughness public  necessity  took  no  heavier  hand  than 
private  greed.  Diverted  from  the  church,  the  edifices 
were  looted  of  their  plate,  their  silver  altar-rails,  and 
their  Murillos  —  one  gentleman,  since  happily  dead, 
got  $60,000  at  a  pawnshop  for  the  paintings  he  had 
collected  by  this  simple  process.  The  buildings  them- 
selves were  promptly  "  denounced,"*  and  sold  for 
beggarly  sums  —  many  of  them  for  beggarly  ends. 
You  cannot  sample  far  among  the  hotels  without 
lodging  in  an  ex-convent.  You  may  have  your  livery 
turnout  from  another.  If  you  visit  school,  or  barracks 
or  hospital,  it  will  generally  be  in  another.  And  if 
you  chance  to  go  to  prison,  you  would  be  (up  to  just 

*  The  Spanish  miner's  term  for  filing  on  a  "claim." 


NEW  WINE  IN  OLD   BOTTLES  63 

now)  locked  inside  of  church  walls.  Of  course  it  all 
results  in  far  more  costly  and  artistic  school-houses, 
hospitals,  and  prisons  than  are  fashionable  in  lands 
which  have  not  had  the  lucky  opportunity  to  get 
ahead  of  their  Maker. 

But  her  attitude  in  pcenology  to-day  is  very  signif- 
icant of  modern  Mexico.  Mexican  prisons,  in  my  ob- 
servation, have  as  a  rule  richly  deserved  all  their  in- 
mates, whether  native  or  imported.  Particularly 
Americans  —  since  no  other  people  have  quite  the 
same  out-of-school  feeling  when  away  from  home, 
and  no  others  so  habitually  violate  not  only  the  new 
laws  but  their  own  congenital  traditions.  I  would 
certainly  not  say  no  American  was  ever  unjustly  im- 
prisoned in  Mexico.  I  simply  have  never  known  one 
to  be.  These  prisons  also  deserve  some  of  their  ill 
repute  as  a  mode  of  luxury.  Until  people  can  build 
prisons  for  prisons,  they  must  use  what  makeshifts 
they  may ;  and  superb  architecture  does  not  reconcile 
the  prisoner  to  the  natural  shortcomings  of  a  jail 
which  was  built  for  a  church.  Belem,  the  great  gen- 
eral lock-up,  is  the  old  convent  of  that  name,  and  was 
not  at  all  adequate  for  its  more  than  three  thousand  in- 
mates— though  I  have  seen  worse  arrangements  in 
many  American  cities.  Santiago  de  Tlaltelolco,  the  mil- 
itary prison,  is  as  superannuated.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest 
churches  in  Mexico,  having  been  founded  by  the  first 
viceroy,  Antonio  de  Mendoza,  and  its  convent  was  one 
of  the  first  schools — in  which  the  historian,  Bernardino 
Ribeira  (commonly  known  as  Sahagun),  was  a  profes- 
sor.   It  was  a  school  for  the  sons  of  Indian  caciques.* 

*  Here  the  famous  myth  of  the  Virgin  of  Guadalupe  was 


64  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

But  the  day  of  the  makeshift  is  passing.  Just  be- 
fore I  left  the  capital  the  retiring  governor*  of  the 
federal  district  turned  over  to  the  federal  government 
the  new  penitentiary,  a  model  modern  institution  on 
the  Croffton  plan,  which,  I  believe,  has  not  yet  its 
equal  anywhere  among  us.  It  cost  over  two  millions, 
is  of  basalt  and  tezontli,  covers  eighteen  acres,  and  is 
perfect  in  every  detail  of  sanitation,  security,  and 
comfort.f  Before  these  lines  are  published  it  will  be 
occupied,  and  the  days  of  Tlaltelolco  and  Belem  will 
be  done.  There  is  similar  activity  all  over  the  repub- 
lic in  replacing  the  old  ad  interim  convent-jails  with 
institutions  up  to  date.  The  state  penitentiary  at 
Puebla,  for  instance,  is  a  type  of  what  is  being  done 
by  cities  we  would  account  small,  and  states  that 
seem  to  us  but  sparsely  settled.  There  is  no  hanging 
in  Mexico,  and  (outside  what  concerns  the  army  and 
the  brigands)  no  capital  punishment.  Nor  are  irons 
allowed  under  the  new  dispensation.  I  have  known 
the  holy  horror  of  officers  of  ours  at  not  being  al- 
lowed to  manacle  prisoners  they  were  extraditing. 
The  modern  Mexican  theory  is  that  irons  are  an  igno- 
miny, and  that  it  is  the  officer's  business  to  keep  his 

born.  It  sprang  from  a  comedy  written  by  Antonio  Valeriano, 
for  the  representation  of  which  the  Indian  Marcos  painted 
upon  a  blanket  what  is  now  the  "miraculous  image."  The 
episode  is  a  magnificent  type  of  the  origin  and  spread  of  primi- 
tive hero-myths. 

*  An  honorable  type  of  the  administrators  of  modern  Mexi- 
co, Don  Pedro  Rincon  Gallardo. 

t  The  director  in  his  office,  by  a  turn  of  the  wrist,  unlocks 
or  locks  every  cell.  There  is  a  department  for  women  and  one 
for  juvenile  offenders. 


A    PATIO    IN    THE    PRISON    OF    BELEM 


NEW  WINE  IN  OLD  BOTTLES  65 

man.  It  may  surprise  the  average  reader  to  learn  that 
the  object  of  prisons  in  Mexico  is  not  so  much  pun- 
ishment as  reform  by  education.  To  such,  the  mod- 
ern laws  of  Diaz  regulating  penitentiaries  should  be 
instructive  reading.  In  these  laws,  of  course,  the 
credit  system  for  good  behavior  cuts  as  certain  a  fig- 
ure as  the  compulsory  education  and  the  learning  of 
trades  in  the  finely  appointed  shops.* 

Except  the  artillery  and  the  engineers,  whatever 
regiment  you  visit  is  quartered  in  an  old  convent. 
Of  these  barracks  the  most  interesting  is  the  Merced, 
founded  in  1601,  with  a  patio  which  is  one  of  the 
finest  in  the  city.  Many  schools  are  similar  debtors 
to  the  unthanked  past;  and  in  their  case,  at  least,  one 
may  be  most  willing  to  pardon  the  usurpation.  The 
capital  has,  by-the-way,  fifty  public  schools  for  boys, 
forty-nine  for  girls,  six  mixed,  and  nine  night  schools. 
There  is  also  a  large  number  of  private  institutions, 
from  the  kindergarten  up,  and  of  special  schools,  train- 
ing schools,  and  the  like.  It  is  also  to  be  noted,  amid 
the  educational  progress,  that  on  September  16,  1896, 
the  metric  system  became  compulsory  throughout  the 
republic,  and  that  Mexicans  are  tolerantly  sorry  for 

*  A  prisoner's  term  is  divided  into  three  periods.  The  first 
is  occupied  with  penal  labor.  The  second  is  at  labor  in  the 
training  school,  with  a  little  pay.  The  third,  "  Preparatory 
freedom,"  includes  paid  work  and  many  privileges.  The  pri- 
mary education  is  strictly  compulsory.  A  jail-bird  unable  to 
read  and  write  will  never  again  be  graduated.  In  the  third 
period  the  convicts  are  taught  drawing,  mechanics,  and  indus- 
trial chemistry.  The  trades  include  stone-working,  iron-mould- 
ing, saddle  -  making,  weaving,  carpentry,  tailoring,  printing, 
blacksmithing,  shoe  making,  etc. ;  and,  for  the  disabled,  broom 
and  basket  making  and  the  like. 
5 


66  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

such  nations  as  still  cling  to  the  superstition  of  a 
cruder  scheme. 

The  edifice  of  the  first  university  in  America  (found- 
ed by  the  Spanish  crown  in  155 1)  is  to-day  occupied 
by  the  National  Conservatory  of  Music — an  invention 
of  poor  Carlota.  The  National  Academy  of  Art  (an- 
cient Academy  of  San  Carlos)  stands  where  Fray  Pedro 
de  Gante  founded,  in  1524,  the  first  school  in  the  New 
World — a  school  for  Indians.  The  Normal  School 
for  males,  with  its  forty-five  instructors,  six  hundred 
pupils,  and  first-class  German  equipment,  including  ex- 
cellent machine-shops,  occupies  the  old  convent  of 
Santa  Teresa  (1678).  The  Normal  School  for  females 
has  fourteen  hundred*  pupils,  and  is  in  a  hundred- 
thousand-dollar  building  of  1648.  The  fine  old  Jesuit 
college  of  San  Ildefonso,  erected  in  1749  at  a  cost  of 
$400,000,  is  now  filled  with  the  thousand  pupils  of  the 
National  Preparatory  School.  The  National  College 
of  Medicine  is  housed  in  the  old  home  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion (1732) — the  chato\  edifice,  whose  four  hanging 
arches  at  each  corner  of  the  lower  corridor  are  famous. 
The  building  was  taken  for  its  present  purpose  in  this 
century,  the  Holy  Office  dying  in  America  with  the 
Independence,  but  the  medical  college  was  established 
by  royal  decree  of  1768.  It  has  now  several  hundreds 
of  pupils.  San  Lorenzo  (1598)  is  now  the  manual- 
training   school,  where   poor   boys   are   gratuitously 

*  In  both  these  schools  the  figures  include  the  primary  de- 
partments. Pupils  are  educated  from  A  B  C  up  to  a  teacher's 
diploma.  The  primary  course  is  six  years,  and  may  be  entered 
at  from  seven  to  twelve  years  of  age.  The  normal  course  is 
five  years. 

t  Flat-nosed. 


THE    BARRACKS    OF    LA    MERCED 


NEW   WINE   IN   OLD   BOTTLES  67 

taught  lithography,  engraving,  printing,  carpentry,  and 
many  other  trades.  The  similar  institution  for  girls  is 
of  course  modern,  dating  only  from  1874.  The  Law 
School  occupies  the  old  ex-convent  of  the  Incarnation, 
but  itself  dates  only  from  1868.  The  School  of  Agri- 
culture and  the  School  of  Commerce  are  also  modern. 
The  National  Library,  with  its  200,000  volumes,  dwells 
in  the  splendid  sequestered  church  of  San  Agustin, 
given  it  by  Maximilian  in  1864.  The  National  Mu- 
seum— just  now  not  in  wholly  ideal  hands — occupies 
part  of  the  million-dollar  building  erected  in  173 1  for 
the  royal  mint.  And  so  on  through  a  list  that  would 
rival  the  catalogue  of  the  ships.  The  School  of  Mines 
and  Engineering,  however,  stands  in  no  dead  man's 
shoes.  Its  magnificent  building  of  chiluca  (the  nearest 
to  granite  the  valley  affords)  was  built  for  it  by  the 
great  Tolsa  in  1793,  and  cost  three  millions.*  As  late 
as  1824  Humboldt  declared,  "  No  city  of  the  New  Con- 
tinent, not  excepting  those  of  the  United  States,  pre- 
sents scientific  establishments  so  great  and  solid  as  those 
of  the  capital  of  Mexico. "f  Except  as  to  the  buildings, 
of  course,  so  much  could  not  be  said  to-day.  We 
have  forged  ahead  (though  only  in  this  generation)  by 
our  vast  superiority  in  numbers  and  wealth.  But  it  is 
as  true  now  as  it  was  in  1824  that  the  educational  insti- 
tutions of  Mexico  can  be  ignored  only  by  the  ignorant. 
The  gravest  fault  in  the  present  capital  is  natural 
enough  to  its  transitional  state — the  vertigo  of  sudden 

*  This  is,  so  to  speak,  a  mining  school  of  technology.  It 
has  a  school  of  applied  mining  at  Pachuca. 

t  Before  this  century  began,  Spain  had  spent  $400,000  on 
three  botanical  commissions  which  had  explored  the  flora  of 
Peru,  New  Granada,  and  New  Spain  (Mexico). 


68  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

progress — but  it  is  an  unworthiness  I  pray  educated 
Mexico  may  see  in  time.  As  with  us,  the  wine  of 
material  development  begins  to  mount  to  the  head, 
and  in  their  splendid  reaching  out  for  the  new  they 
too  much  forget  the  old.  No  modern  structure  in  the 
capital  compares  in  dignity  and  worth  of  architecture 
with  any  one  of  hundreds  of  buildings  which  date 
from  the  seventeenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  few 
will  last  so  long  as  they  will  still.*  Too  many  wealthy 
dons  are  erecting  residences  copied  after — and  as  ugly 
and  uncomfortable  as — the  American  parvenu's.  A 
needless  vandalism  has  already  dynamited  a  hundred 
arches  of  the  massy  old  aqueductf  of  Chapultepec, 

*  The  Casa  del  Conde  de  Santiago,  on  the  street  of  Jesus 
Nazareno,  is  one  of  the  finest  types,  with  its  splendid,  carved 
doors  to  the  saguan,  its  seventeen  eave-spouts  of  great  field- 
pieces,  each  carved  from  a  single  stone,  and  the  fierce  serpent's 
head  (spoil  of  a  prehistoric  teocalli)  set  in  its  southwest  corner. 
Wells,  Fargo  &  Co.'s  express  occupies  another  ancient  palace ; 
and  the  Jockey  Club  has  a  gem — the  Casa  de  Azulejos,  with  its 
fine  covering  of  encaustic  tiles,  and  its  romantic  story,  which 
has  given  rise  to  a  proverb. 

t  Begun  about  1604.    Cost  $150,000.    The  inscription  on  the 

fountain  on  this  aqueduct  reads,  in  the  quaint  semi-shorthand 

of  the  day : 

Rey£2  en  las  Es 

PANAS   LA   CATH* 

Mag2  de  S5  D™  Fer 

NANDO   EL   VI    (Q2 
DlOS   GE£)  Y  EN   SU 

Nom5  La  Nueva 
Esp™  el  Exc^  S*  M 

ARQUEZ   DE   LAS 
AMARILLAS   SE   FA 
BRICO   ESTA   PILA. 

(Reigning  in  the  Spains,  His  Catholic  Majesty  Ferdinand 


s    > 

>    -• 

3     J 


5.    S 

5     c 


NEW   WINE  IN  OLD   BOTTLES  69 

which  would  be  a  treasure  to  any  city ;  and  its  older 
brother  of  Santa  F6  is  as  wantonly  breached.  There 
was  even  a  movement  to  erase  the  noble  fountain  of 
the  Salto  de  Agua  (apparently  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  it  dates  from  1779,  and  is  worth  all  the 
modern  fountains  in  the  city  put  together),  and  to  use 
its  room  for  a  few  yards  of  pavement.  But,  happily, 
this  iniquity  was  forestalled.  I  cannot  believe  a  tem- 
per so  open  to  sentiment  as  is  the  Latin-American 
will  much  longer  countenance  these  vandalisms ;  and 
if  that  were  conceivable,  the  new  commercial  sense 
cannot  remain  blind  to  the  fact  that  these  superb 
old  landmarks  are  worth  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars  a  year  to  Mexico.  All  the  march  of  modern 
progress  need  not  trample  a  single  one  of  these  monu- 
ments. 

Even  the  squat,  unpretentious  National  Palace* 
has  suffered  seriously  within.  It  is  well  that  public 
offices  be  habitable,  but  they  can  be  made  so  without 
philistinism ;  and  Hon.  Ignacio  Mariscal  (sometime 
Minister  to  Washington,  now  Vice-President  of  the 
republic  and  Minister  of  Foreign  Relations)  deserves 
gratitude  for  having  conserved  the  magnificent  old 
ceilings  of  Spanish  cedar  which  are  the  charm  of  the 
Hall  of  Ambassadors  and  of  his  department,  while  the 

VI.,  and,  in  his  name,  over  New  Spain,  the  Most  Excellent 
Marques  de  las  Amariilas,  this  fountain  was  built.)  A  similar 
tablet  on  the  other  side  of  the  pila  bears  the  inscription  of  the 
corregidor,  etc. 

*  Fifty  feet  high  and  600  feet  square.  The  original  building 
was  burned  in  a  famine-riot  by  the  Indians  in  1692,  and  the 
Viceroy,  Don  Gaspar  de  Sandoval,  had  to  take  refuge  in  the 
convent  of  San  Francisco. 


JO  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

inutile  "utilitarian"  has  plastered  most  of  the  rest  of 
the  Paldcio. 

From  the  halls  which  overlook  from  the  south  the 
patio  de  honor,  Mexico  has  been  guided,  well  or  ill, 
these  three  centuries  and  a  half.  Here  the  viceroys 
interpreted  the  royal  ce"dulas  and  made  bandos  of 
their  own — like  that  which  in  1554  forbade  all  jewel- 
lers, because  his  Excellency  saw  that  luxury  grew  too 
fat.*  Here  Iturbide  and  Maximilian  (the  only  em- 
perors Mexico  ever  had)  held  their  little  circumstance 
before  the  tragic  end.  Here  Juarez,  the  only  man 
under  the  republic  (up  to  within  twenty  years)  able  to 
keep  his  footing  in  power  for  six  years,  did  his  preg- 
nant work — at  least,  while  he  was  not  dodging  the 
French  armies.  And  here  the  only  Mexican  Presi- 
dent who  has  surpassed  him  has  made  his  incompar- 
ably greater  conquest  for  the  father-land. 

*  For  us,  to  whom  paternal  government  seems  "  funny,"  there 
would  be  great  humor  in  a  digest  of  the  bandos  of  Spanish 
America.  A  Viceroy  of  Peru,  for  instance  (the  Duque  de 
Palata,  about  1680),  made  one  against  the  eating  of  cucumbers 
by  Indians — these  vegetables  being  then  locally  called  "  mata- 
serranos  "  (Indian-killers).  A  predecessor  by  about  sixty  years, 
the  Viceroy  Marques  de  Guadalcazar,  had  by  bando  prohibited 
the  wearing  of  the  manto  by  the  ladies  of  Lima,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  too  provocative.  It  gave  to  see  the  eyes,  the  tip  of 
the  nose,  and  about  six  square  inches  of  arm.  The  short  bell 
skirt,  which  revealed  the  most  beautiful  feet  and  ankles  known 
to  man,  was  deemed  harmless.  It  is  almost  needless  to  say 
that  the  ladies  were  "better  men  "than  the  old  Viceroy,  and 
that  the  manto  survived  until  ridiculous  and  unbecoming  for- 
eign fashions  killed  it.  No  viceregal  edict,  by-the-way,  sur- 
passed the  royal  cidula  of  Philip  II.,  ordering  all  the  bachelors 
of  Lima  to  marry  within  thirty  days. 


VII 
CHEAP    MONEY 

It  was  well  for  Mexico  that  when  silver  took  its 
Gadarene  course  Diaz  was  in  the  saddle.  There  is  no 
uncertainty  in  saying  that  no  other  man  of  her  whole 
history — unless  it  were  that  great  first  viceroy,  Antonio 
de  Mendoza — could  have  lifted  her  safely  across  the 
gulf. 

Here  was  a  silver  country,  not  by  fanatic  experi- 
ment, but  by  geologic  predestination.  Practically  she 
never  produced  gold,  and  the  unparalleled  coinage  of 
her  mints  in  all  these  centuries*  has  been  in  an  enor- 
mous majority  white.  She  is  producing  still  f  seventy- 
five  millions  of  silver  a  year,  and  about  six  millions 
gold. 

To  her,  enter  sudden  bankruptcy,  shrivelling  her 
dollar  crop  by  one -half  its  value.  She  was  already 
committed  to  progress,  and  that  meant  a  foreign  debt — 
payable  in  gold.  Here  were  the  elements  of  as  pretty 
a  collapse  as  one  could  ask  to  see. 

But  Mexico  was  already  knit,  and  the  compound 
unit  was  handled  by  no  uncertain  fist.  There  was  a 
government  which  knew,  first,  what  it  wished  ;  second- 
ly, how  to  get  it — and  when  there  is  a  policy  adopted 

*  From  1527  to  June  1,  1895,  $3,585,980,462. 
f  Fiscal  year  1894-5. 


72  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

in  Mexico  nowadays  it  "goes,"  in  the  language  of 
politics. 

Even  Juarez  had  fallen  under  temptation.  The 
repudiation  fathered  by  him  was  a  chief  cause  of  inter- 
vention and  Maximilian.  But  Diaz  had  the  clearer 
head.  His  first  step  was  to  secure  the  credit  of  his 
nation.  He  simply  said,  "  The  debt  shall  be  met  in 
gold,"  and  set  himself  to  the  pleasant  task  of  finding 
two  dollars  for  one. 

Revenue  can  be  raised  in  Mexico ;  and  at  the  side 
of  Diaz  was  unquestionably  one  of  the  ablest  finan- 
ciers of  modern  times — Jose  Ives  Limantour,  present 
Minister  of  Hacienda — and  behind  them  they  had  the 
Mexican  people.  It  is  perhaps  only  in  the  formative 
stage  of  a  nation  that  a  government  appeal  to  patriot- 
ism is  stronger  than  selfish  luxury  or  business  greed. 
When  it  came  to  paying  two  prices  for  imports,  Mexico 
began  to  get  along  with  very  few  imports  indeed. 
She  learned  in  that  sharp  pinch  the  great  lesson — 
ignoring  of  which  has  been  the  ruin  of  Peru,  the  only 
other  Spanish  colony  which  was  ever  richer — that  it  is 
cheaper  to  make  than  to  buy.  Exchange  acted  as  a 
rabid  protective  tariff,  and  the  country  which  practi- 
cally knew  nothing  but  mines  began  suddenly  to 
manufacture.*  Three  years  ago  the  import  duties  on 
cotton  cloths  brought  the  government  five  millions  a 
year;  to-day  they  bring  nothing,  for  there  is  no  longer 
importation.  But  the  cotton-mills  which  have  sprung 
up  in  the  republic  already  paid  $1,200,000  in  taxes 
last  year,  an  amount  which  this  year  will  very  greatly 

*  On  a  commercial  scale,  that  is.  There  have  always  been 
fireside  manufactures  in  Mexico  and  a  few  big  privileges. 


agsKSsmiMfiJii 


DOOR    OF   THE    "  CASA    DEL    CONDE,"    MEXICO 


CHEAP   MONEY  73 

increase.  Beer  yielded  in  the  custom-houses  a  million 
a  year,  and  to-day  yields  not  one-thousandth  part  as 
much  ;  for  Mexico  is  now  dotted  with  breweries  of  her 
own.  These  startling  figures  are  typical  of  the  new 
national  attitude,  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  new 
national  unity — a  country  "  making  it  unanimous" 
with  the  brains  of  one  man. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  however,  that  some  of  the 
most  potent  enablers  of  Mexico  in  the  struggle  with 
depreciation  have  been  fortuities  which  neither  Diaz 
nor  Limantour  invented,  though  they  have  known 
how  to  profit  thereby.  The  nation  has  had  an  un- 
conscious angel  —  a  benefactor  by  no  grace  of  his. 
Uncle  Sam  pays  for  her  products  in  sound  money — 
that  is,  at  double  rates.  For  it  must  be  remembered 
that  a  Mexican  dollar  in  Mexico  buys  as  much  (of 
everything  but  imported  goods),  now  that  it  is  worth 
forty-six  or  seven  cents  gold,  as  it  did  when  it  was 
worth  ioo.  This  fact  somewhat  explains  the  epidemic 
of  new  industries.  The  gold-country  manufacturer  re- 
moving to  Mexico  about  doubles  his  capital  by  the 
mere  act  of  crossing  the  border.  For  his  every  five- 
dollar  gold -piece  he  gets  something  like  $10.  He 
more  than  trebles  it  again  on  his  pay-roll — a  matter 
not  more  significant  to  him  than  it  should  be  to  such 
working-men  as  would  adopt  the  Mexican  finances 
without  the  Mexican  remedies.  And  beyond  these 
two  glittering  premiums  the  manufacturer  is  given 
substantial  concessions — for  Diaz  believes  in  factories, 
and  means  to  have  them  by  wholesale.  Furthermore, 
now  that  the  interstate  tariffs  are  removed,  the  manu- 
facturer will  no  longer  need  to  crowd  to  the  centres  of 
population,  but  can  go  to  the  cheap  water-powers. 


74  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

To  those  who  produce,  the  Mexican  dollar  is  "  a 
sweet  boon."  It  is  the  unit  of  the  country.  It  is 
worth  outside  only  half  what  it  used  to  be — but  they 
do  not  send  it  so  much  outside.  At  home  it  is  as 
good  as  ever,  and  they  get  two  of  it  where  they  once 
got  one,  since  nominal  prices  are  not  much  changed. 
The  exporter  of  coffee  pays  $35  for  the  cargo  that 
used  to  be  worth  $30;  and  he  sells  it  not  at  $40,  but 
at  $30.  But  his  $35  is  paid  by  him  in  Mexican  silver, 
and  his  $30  is  received  by  him  in  gold,  which  means 
to  him  about  twice  as  much. 

The  prudent  New  England  saw,  "  Money  does  not 
grow  on  every  bush,"  was  invented  without  knowl- 
edge of  Mexico.  For  here  it  does.  Here  at  last  (for 
the  traveller,  at  least)  is  the  dreamland,  the  kingdom 
of  Something  for  Nothing.  Bargains  in  Dollars ! 
Coin  selling  out  at  half  cost!  Help  yourself  to  what 
you  wish,  and  the  cashier  will  give  you  your  money 
back,  and  a  few  dollars  to  boot !  One  may  half  fancy 
what  our  advertisers  would  do  with  such  a  text. 

You  drop  into  the  estanqiiillo  on  the  corner,  and 
buy  twenty -five  honorable  cigars  for  seventy -five 
cents.  The  tobacconist  rings  your  five -dollar  gold- 
piece  on  the  counter  (I  notice  that  it  is  not  the  Su- 
perior Race  which  manages  to  pass  plugged  money 
in  Mexico),  and  without  emotion  hands  you  nine  sil- 
ver dollars  and  some  small  change.  There  are  new 
Americans  and  Americans.  Some  escape  before  he 
shall  discover  his  mistake.  Others  (and  the  immoral 
truth  must  be  confessed  that  they  are  of  as  furtive 
mien  when  they  do  emerge)  tarry  to  set  him  right. 
But  the  Spanish  American  is  wonderfully  poised.  I 
never  knew  him  to  laugh  in  the  face  even  of  a  tourist. 


THE    NATIONAL    PALACE 


CHEAP  MONEY  75 

With  some  other  little  furniture  he  should  be  the 
model  kindergartner. 

No,  he  has  not  erred.  It  is  el  cdmbio.  There  is 
contagion  in  this.  You  penetrate  the  next  stand  and 
buy  a  box  of  twenty-five  Escepcionales  (which  a  quar- 
ter apiece  could  not  procure  in  New  York)  at  $2  ;  and 
from  your  half-eagle  you  gather  up  of  that  which  is 
left  eight  dollars  y  pico.  It  is  like  the  miracle  of  the 
loaves  and  fishes  brought  down  to  date  and  American 
ideals.  The  philosopher's  stone  was  mere  mud  to 
this.  To  make  a  salary  simply  by  spending  money — 
that  is  precisely  what  we  are  looking  for.  There  is 
only  one  hard  fact.  Ten  cents  out  of  an  American 
silver  dollar  leaves  only  ninety  cents.  But  that  is 
trivial.  All  one  has  to  do  is  to  bring  plenty  of  gold, 
and  swap  one  dollar  for  two  as  long  as  one  can  stand 
prosperity. 

The  last  large  factor  among  those  that  have  saved 
Mexico  in  the  jaws  of  cheap  money  is — cheap  labor. 
The  average  Mexican  workman  gets  about  three  bits 
(thirty-seven  and  a  half  cents)  a  day.  On  the  hacien- 
das it  is  often  less;  in  the  factories  and  on  the  railroads 
it  is  generally  more.*  No  wonder  the  manufacturer 
and  the  grower  can  stand  it ! 

*  Mechanics  (native)  get  $2  to  $3  a  day ;  Americans,  $4  to 
$5.75.  Section-hands  are  paid  about  60  cents.  If  the  wages  of 
mechanics  seem  low,  it  is  easily  explained.  They  are  not,  in 
our  sense,  mechanics,  but  "helpers"  and  "handy-men."  They 
are  recruited  from  the  lowest  class ;  for  up  the  social  stairs  the 
old  idea  that  to  be  a  gentleman  one  must  do  nothing,  and  do 
it  well,  is  prevalent  as  it  was  in  our  chivalric  South — and  as  it 
is  not  unknown  in  a  more  modern  society.  But  even  out  of 
this  peon  clay  the  hand  of  evolution  is  modelling  better  and 
ever  better  wares.     For  it  is  plastic.     No  peasantry  anywhere 


j6  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

It  is  fair  to  add  that  the  current  pity  for  the  Mexi- 
can laborer  is  altogether  wasted.  He  has  a  climate 
decent  to  be  lived  in — wherein,  it  is  estimated,  twelve 
days'  work  in  the  year  is  enough  to  supply  one  peon 
with  the  necessities  of  life.  His  small  wages  are  not 
only  as  much  as  he  wants,  but  as  much  as  he  wishes. 
If  he  gets  higher  pay  he  works  fewer  days — for  to  his 
unbitten  notion  the  only  object  of  work  is  to  get 
enough  to  live  on.  Of  course  the  final  outlook  for 
Mexico  is  when  this  multiple  of  narrow,  ragged,  igno- 
rant content  shall  begin  to  increase  his  wants ;  but  it 
is  a  long  way  before  that  bridge  needs  to  be  crossed. 
When  he  begins  to  require  larger  wages  for  larger 
horizons,  he  will  begin  to  get  them — and  already  the 
first  tokens  of  the  change  appear ;  for  wages  are  very 
slowly  improving  in  Mexico.  Meantime  the  Mexican 
laborer  earns  enough  to  make  him  the  farthest  from 
populism  and  strikes  of  any  toiler  in  North  America,* 

is  likelier  raw  material  for  the  making  of  skilled  artisans.  None 
have  apter  eyes  or  hands,  and  few  have  such  patience  for  de- 
tail. Even  Humboldt  was  astonished  by  this  mechanic  gift, 
and  prophesied  of  it  great  things — which  are  fast  coming  true. 
It  takes  time,  anywhere,  to  develop  workmen  whose  brains 
shall  outrun  their  fingers  ;  but  the  ideal  combination  of  dexter- 
ity, elasticity  to  circumstance,  and  forethought  will  be  reached 
sooner  here  than  in  some  other  places.  I  recall  no  Northern 
land  whose  folk-handiwork  is  quite  so  widely  and  so  truly  "art- 
work." And  in  Mexico  it  is  fully  as  easy  for  the  humblest  to 
rise  to  the  very  top  as  it  is  in  our  republic — in  politics,  eco- 
nomics, or  scholarship.  There  no  man  fails  to  be  great  because 
he  is  a  Negro  or  an  Indian. 

*  Mexico  has  no  hint  whatever  of  our  antagonism  between 
the  Have-nots  and  the  Haves.  Far  more  inbred  to  aristocracy 
than  the  Saxon,  the  Spaniard  has  yet  kept  far  more  of  the 


THE   SAL-T'O   DE   AGUA,   MEXICO   (1779) 


CHEAP   MONEY  JJ 

and  is  at  the  same  time  enriching  his  employer  and 
his  nation.  How  far  he  is  from  suffering  has  often 
been  shown.  In  1894  there  was  a  corn-famine.  Hear- 
ing the  usual  curb-stone  gossip  of  destitution,  the  mu- 
nicipal government  of  the  capital  arranged  with  the 
contractors  of  the  Desagiie  to  employ  at  regular  wages 
every  man  sent  out.  The  city  was  placarded  with  no- 
tices, and  the  quarter  of  San  Lazaro  buzzed  with  talk. 
Nascitur  ridiculus  mns.  Three  peons  came  to  the  mu- 
nicipalidad  to  see  about  it.  And  not  one  was  pinched 
enough  to  go  out  to  work  ! 

By  these  tokens  Mexico  has  met  her  greatest  eco- 
nomic crisis,  and  has  prevailed.  Under  Juarez  the 
revenues  of  the  best  year  were  below  fourteen  mill- 
ions ;  now  they  are  above  forty-six  millions,  and  there 
is  a  surplus.  Mexico  also  has  at  last  the  balance  of 
trade  in  her  favor.  Her  exports  are  growing  at  the 
rate  of  ten  millions  a  year,  her  imports  at  the  rate  of 
four  millions.  A  pretty  penny  in  United  States  gold 
comes  down  annually  to  square  the  account ;  for 
while  Mexico  sells  us  sixty-five  per  cent,  of  her  ex- 
ports, she  gets  only  fifteen  per  cent,  of  her  imports 
from  us,  preferring  to  do  most  of  her  buying  from  na- 
tions that  think  it  worth  while  to  cultivate  her  trade. 
She  is  not  only  able  to  keep  reducing  her  foreign 
gold  debt  (about  $150,000,000)  at  two  dollars  for  one, 
but  has  spare  change  to  build  two -million -dollar 
prisons  and  eighteen-million-dollar  canals  and  twenty- 
million-dollar  harbors.  The  enormous  port  improve- 
ments at  Tampico  ($7,000,000),  Coatzacoalcos  ($7,000,- 

human  attitude — since,  after  all,  his  aristocracy  runs  rather  to 
the  patriarchate  than  to  the  feudal  tyranny. 


yS  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

ooo),  and  Vera  Cruz  ($20,000,000) ;  the  railroad  de- 
velopment, in  subsidizing  which  the  Diaz  administra- 
tion has  already  expended  $110,000,000 — these  and 
their  like  activities  indicate  the  financial  condition  of 
the  government.  And  these  are  not  sops  to  the 
Cerberus  of  selfish  constituencies,  but  the  logical 
paces  of  a  consistent  paternalism.  I  may  add  that 
the  minor  fall  in  silver  which  occurs  as  these  pages  go 
to  press  in  book  form,  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  of  seri- 
ous import  to  Mexico.  Qui  transtulit  sustinet.  The 
statesmanship  which  was  competent  to  handle  a  de- 
preciation of  forty-eight  per  cent,  in  the  currency  of 
the  country  will  not  be  baffled  by  a  fall  of  eight  per 
cent.  It  means  some  hardship,  of  course ;  but  I  can- 
not too  much  insist  that  Mexico  as  nowadays  admin- 
istered is  fit  to  cope  with  any  contingency  inside  of 
human  probability.  The  new  degradation  of  silver  will 
(in  Mexico)  again  shrink  importation  and  increase 
manufacture. 

The  next  four  years  are  to  witness  great  things  in 
perfecting  internal  communication.  To  me,  one  of 
the  most  important  enterprises  in  Mexico  is  the 
"  Cuernavaca  "  Railroad,  now  open  from  the  capital  to 
Tres  Marias.  It  was  contracted  to  be  finished  to  the 
river  Mescala*  by  or  before  last  November,  and  with- 
in eight  months  later  to  reach  Acapulco.  Though  de- 
layed past  this  limit,  it  is  pushing  on  as  fast  as  possi- 
ble. Then  for  the  first  time  Mexico  will  be  crossed 
by  rail — a  transcontinental  iron-way  from  the  adequate 
artificial  harbors  of  the  Gulf  coast,  through  the  capi- 


*  Which  the  author  of  the  Kosmos  had  to  cross  on  a  zangada, 
or  raft  of  calabashes. 


-7— --" -  r 


CHEAP    MONEY  79 

tal,  with  its  already  competent  north  and  south  con- 
nections, to  the  Pacific  and  that  superb  natural  har- 
bor, the  second  finest  on  the  globe.  The  west  coast 
of  Mexico  I  count  the  right  arm  of  the  country ;  but 
it  has  always  been  bound.  Now  the  lashings  are  about 
to  fall.  The  vast  productiveness  of  Guerrero  and  Si- 
naloa  and  Jalisco  and  Michuacan  will  be  developed ; 
and  more  than  that,  the  whole  country  will  have,  for 
the  first  time  in  history,  its  fair  outlet  to  the  com- 
merce of  the  world. 

Other  railroads  are  playing  their  part.  The  Mexi- 
can Central  (with  a  fifth  of  the  total  mileage  of  the 
republic)  and  the  International  bind  Mexico  to  us. 
Both  have  multiplied  their  business  by  six  or  seven  in 
a  decade,  and  both  have  a  still  larger  hope.  The  Cen- 
tral has  at  Tampico  what  will  probably  be  the  chief 
harbor  of  the  Gulf.  The  International  at  Durango  is 
only  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  from  the  Pacific 
harbor  of  Mazatlan,  and  has  engineers  seeking  an  out- 
let by  profitable  grades.  The  Mexican  Southern 
(General  Grant's  road),  finished  in  1893,  has  opened 
one  of  the  largest,  richest,  and  hitherto  least  accessi- 
ble portions  of  the  country.  The  Vera  Cruz  line — 
dean  of  Mexican  railroads,  opened  in  1873 — 1S  waken- 
ing its  way -side  territory,  and  will  do  much  more 
when  its  terminal  port  is  completed.  There  is  re- 
markable activity  in  the  diversified  territory  pierced 
by  the  Interoceanic  Railroad,  where  cotton-mills  and 
pulp-paper  mills  are  springing  up,  and  slow  old  sugar 
haciendas  are  suddenly  putting  in  the  most  modern 
machinery,  to  the  tune  of  $60,000  to  $100,000  apiece. 
An  important  line,  under  contract,  will  pass  down  the 
west  coast  to  the  Guatemalan  frontier,  striking  Tehuan- 


80  THE   AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

tepee  (with  its  short  transisthmian  line  and  its  harbor 
of  Salina  Cruz)  from  the  northwest,  as  the  Southern 
Railroad  is  to  strike  it  from  the  northeast.  Construc- 
tion is  begun  on  the  "  Corralitos  road "  (Gould  sys- 
tem) from  El  Paso  into  the  Sierra  Madre,  and  with 
ultimate  destination  on  the  lower  Gulf  of  California. 
Down  on  the  coast  of  Sinaloa  is  the  splendid  natural 
harbor  of  Topolobampo ;  and  if  a  railroad  does  not 
reach  that  port  reasonably  soon,  I  have  authority  for 
saying  that  it  will  be  through  no  fault  of  Diaz.  In- 
deed, among  his  specific  dreams  for  the  general  up- 
lift of  his  nation  one  of  the  dearest  is  to  thwart  that 
astounding  geography — so  well  defined  by  Humboldt 
— which  splits  Mexico  in  twain  from  top  to  bottom. 

Nothing  could  be  more  striking  than  this  present 
state  of  transit  in  old  New  Spain.  No  other  country 
in  the  world's  history  ever  did  anything  like  such  a 
business  by  the  backful.  Until  the  railroads,  Mexico 
was  the  paradise  of  the  "  packer."  From  prehistoric 
days  down,  the  human  back  was  the  corner-stone  of 
commerce ;  and  it  did  not  disappear  from  the  edifice 
even  when  the  Conquest  introduced  beasts  of  burden. 
Even  the  interior  trade  with  Durango,  Chihuahua,  and 
New  Mexico  occupied  60,000  pack-mules.  From  Vera 
Cruz  to  the  capital,  over  wonderful  and  costly  roads 
(which  ate  up,  nevertheless,  70,000  mules  a  year),  more 
than  $20,000,000  worth  of  goods  a  year  was  "  packed." 
Indeed,  everything  of  the  enormous  imported  luxury 
of  New  Spain  came  by  the  same  painful  process.  Even 
the  cacao  of  Guayaquil  and  the  copper  of  Coquimbo 
were  shipped  up  to  Acapulco,  and  thence  crossed  the 
mountains  by  muleback  clear  to  Vera  Cruz — at  $2  a 
carga  of  81  pounds.     As  for  human  loads — and  the 


CHEAP    MONEY  8 1 

Indians  still  carry  their  own  burdens  mostly,  instead 
of  employing  quadrupeds — the  individual  achievement 
is  almost  as  startling  as  the  aggregate.  Humboldt 
found  the  tenateros  in  the  mines  he  visited  "  carrying 
for  six  hours  a  weight  ranging  from  225  to  350  pounds 
on  their  backs,  in  a  very  high  temperature,  ascending 
eight  or  ten  times,  without  rest,  ladders  of  1800 
rounds."  He  very  justly  observes  that  this  might 
properly  change  the  notion  that  the  tropics  are  ener- 
vating. To  this  day  it  is  a  common  thing  to  see  a 
Mexican  Indian  carrying  a  back-load  of  150  pounds 
twenty  miles  to  market. 

There  are  many  other  railroads  past  the  guesswork 
stage — the  administration  is  sharply  discouraging  the 
"paper"  lines  of  penniless  promoters — but  those  above 
are  the  most  pregnant  with  meaning  for  Mexico.  As 
for  telegraph  lines,  the  first  in  the  republic  (that  from 
the  capital  to  Vera  Cruz)  was  inaugurated  in  1852; 
now  there  are  over  twelve  thousand  kilometres. 

The  business  thermometer  in  the  capital  is  at  least 
blood-warm,  and  is  steadily  mounting.  During  my 
permanincia  there  the  street-car  system*  was  sold  for 
eight  million  dollars  to  a  South  African  syndicate. 
The  lines  are  to  be  made  electric — the  only  anachron- 
ism that  lags.  The  city  has  600  electric  arc  lamps, 
and  5000  incandescent.  There  are  1500  police,  with 
68  officers.  The  Ayuntamiento  (city  council)  had 
placards  up  announcing  six  months'  immunity  from 
taxation  for  whatever  householder  should  paint  or  im- 
prove his  building-front.  The  Banco  de  Ldndres  (in 
the  same  period)  desired  to  increase  its  capital  from 

*  With  241  miles  of  track,  3000  mules,  and  2000  employes. 
6 


82  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

five  millions  to  ten.  In  a  few  days  the  business  men 
of  the  city  subscribed  not  five  millions,  but  twenty. 
They  who  know  it  best  are  not  timorous  as  to  the 
future  of  the  capital  city. 

Building  is  active,  new  "colonies"  are  being  plot- 
ted, sold,  and  occupied,  and,  among  the  other  exten- 
sive municipal  improvements,  some  of  the  oldest  and 
finest  streets  are  being  widened — of  course  at  enor- 
mous expense.  Mexico  was  first  paved  in  1604. 
Among  other  imminent  improvements,  a  million-dol- 
lar national  capitol  is  to  be  built.  There  is  an  active 
and  effective  Superior  Council  of  Public  Health,  to 
which  is  largely  due  the  abstinence  of  so  many  citi- 
zens from  falling  into  the  temptations  of  mortality  in 
an  undrained  city.  Since  June  1,  1872,  compulsory 
vaccination  in  the  city  has  marked  the  arms  of  more 
people  *  than  the  total  population.  It  is  a  curi- 
ous fact  that  vaccination  never  has  to  be  repeated 
here.  Once  "taken,"  it  is  good  for  a  lifetime.  And 
"  compulsory  "  in  Mexico  does  not  mean  "  may  be  " 
— as  these  very  figures  show.  There  is  inevitable  ex- 
amination, and  those  found  unsigned  are  promptly  led 
away  for  the  health  officer's  autograph. 

The  like  paternalism  is  evident  in  most  of  the  sev- 

*  Exactly,  up  to  May  22,  1896,  362,763.  Smallpox  was  un- 
known in  the  New  World  before  the  Conquest,  being  distinc- 
tively a  product  of  civilization  —  though  of  robust  appetite 
among  the  uncivilized  when  it  is  brought  to  them.  It  reached 
Mexico  in  1520  by  a  negro  slave  of  Narvaez  and  promptly  ex- 
punged half  the  population  of  the  capital.  Its  greatest  rav- 
ages were  in  1763  and  1779  (the  latter  epidemic  causing  9000 
deaths  in  the  capital  alone).  Already,  by  1797,  nearly  60,000 
people  had  been  vaccinated  there. 


CHEAP   MONEY  83 

en  departments  of  the  federal  government.  Naturally 
the  Minister  of  War  and  Marine  has  his  hands  full 
with  the  finely  appointed  arsenals,  the  military  college, 
the  school-ship  Zaragosa,  and  other  belongings.  Nor 
is  there  much  leeway  for  fathering  the  public  by  the 
Ministry  of  Foreign  Relations  or  that  of  Finance. 
But  there  is  larger  philanthropic  scope  in  the  other 
four.  The  "Interior"  has  charge  of  the  organized 
charities,  among  other  things.  "  Justice  and  Public 
Instruction  "  manages  the  schools,  libraries,  museums, 
etc.,  and  invented  the  present  compulsory  education 
law.  "Communications  and  Public  Works"  oversees 
the  vastly  improved  mail-service,*  the  telegraphs,  rail- 
roads, light-houses,  and  several  other  branches.  The 
Ministry  of  Encouragement  ("  Fomento  ")  is  most  pa- 
ternal of  all,  dealing  with  colonization,  agriculture, 
mining,  statistics,  patents,f  scientific  institutes  and 
commissions,  observatories,  and  many  other  matters 
fit  to  be  forwarded.  Land  titles  are  nowhere  more  se- 
cure. The  mining  laws  of  Mexico  are  confessedly 
better  than  ours.  Colonization  is  no  longer  a  mere 
dream.  The  half-score  thriving  Mormon  colonies  in 
Chihuahua  and  Sonora  were  the  beginning ;  and  now 
three  hundred  thousand  acres  have  been  purchased  in 

*  There  are  fifty  mail-carriers  (with  free  delivery)  in  the  cap- 
ital. Nor  is  the  postal  system  a  parvenu  here.  Indeed,  Span- 
ish America  was  the  first  country  in  history  to  put  the  mails 
on  a  large  footing,  We  thought  our  overland  pony  express,  in 
the  golden  days  of  California,  a  big  thing;  but  half  a  century 
earlier  there  were  regular  monthly  mails  the  length  of  Spanish 
America — from  Paraguay  to  San  Francisco,  California,  a  little 
matter  of  5800  miles, 

t  The  term  of  a  patent  in  Mexico  is  twenty  years. 


84  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

Chiapas  by  a  Japanese  syndicate,  which  will  settle 
thousands  of  its  countrymen  on  these  rich  coffee,  su- 
gar, rubber,  and  tobacco  lands.  A  geographic  com- 
mission under  this  ministry  is  doing  at  last  definitive 
work  on  the  cartography  of  the  republic,  while  mete- 
orology, patents,  and  the  distribution  of  seeds  and  fish 
are  assuming  civilized  proportions.  Under  this  direc- 
tion, too,  the  first  census  of  the  republic*  was  taken, 
October  20,  1895.  It  yielded  a  population  of  12,570,- 
195,  but  is  undoubtedly  short.  Any  one  who  has  ever 
had  seriously  to  do  with  Indians  anywhere  knows 
how  impossible  it  is  to  enumerate  them  ;  and  the  ab- 
origine of  Mexico  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  It  is 
interesting  to  remember  that  there  are  twenty  original 
American  languages  spoken  in  Mexico  to  this  day,  of 
which  the  Nahuatl  (Aztec),  Zapotec,  Otomi,  Mixtec, 
Huaxtec,  Mija,  Tarahumar,  Tepehuan,  Totonac,  Cora, 
Cac-chiquel,  Matlazinga,  Tarasca,  and  Maya  are  chief, 
and  have  attained  printed  grammars  and  vocabularies. 
These  are  not  dialects,  but  languages  apart — as  far  as 
Greek  from  German. 

As  we  find  constant  confusion  in  the  terms,  it  may 
be  of  interest  also  to  give  an  authentic  list  of  the  sev- 
en local  castes  which  have  been  distinguished  in  Span- 
ish America  since  the  first  generation  after  the  Con- 
quest. There  is,  by-the-way,  an  interesting  (and  not 
ill-done)  series  of  Spanish  oil-paintings  on  copper,  il- 
lustrating these  and  the  finer  subdivisions  with  color 
and  text,  from  the  sixteenth  century: 

1.  Gachupin,  a  native  of  Europe. 

*  The  first  census  of  Mexico,  1793,  gave  four  and  a  half  mill- 
ion inhabitants. 


CHEAP    MONEY  85 

2.  Criollo  (creole).  Born  in  America  of  European 
parents  (Spanish  or  French). 

3.  Mestizo.  Born  of  a  white  father  and  Indian 
mother. 

4.  Mulatto.  Born  of  a  white  father  and  negro 
mother. 

5.  Zambo  (source  of  our  "Sambo").  Cross  of  In- 
dian and  negro.     Called  also  "  Chino." 

6.  Indians. 

7.  Negroes. 

As  to  subdivisions,  the  Laws  of  the  Indies  fixed  the 
following  standards : 

Quadroon  (cuarteron),  one-fourth  negro,  three-fourths 
white. 

Quinteroon,  one-eighth  negro,  seven-eighths  white. 

The  courts  were  frequently  appealed  to  to  "  whiten  " 
families  into  which  too  much  color  had  crept.  Some- 
times when  the  analysis  was  a  trifle  involved,  the  ver- 
dict was  rendered,  que  se  tenganpor  bianco — "  that  they 
be  taken  for  white."  There  is,  by-the-way,  one  fresh 
breath  of  humanity  common  not  only  to  Mexico  but 
to  all  the  despotisms,  oligarchies,  and  plugged-coun- 
terfeit  republics  south — the  negro  is  held  to  be  hu- 
man. There  is,  nowadays,  no  more  miscegenation  than 
with  us ;  but  the  Man  and  Brother  has  far  greater 
rights  in  all  Spanish  America  than  in  the  land  of  the 
free  and  the  home  of  the  brave.  In  the  Pullman,  in 
the  first-class  hotel,  the  theatre,  and  wherever  else,  he 
is  just  as  good  as  any  one.  This  is  partly  because  hu- 
man slavery  was  never  a  divine  institution  in  those 
colonies.  While  this  statement  may  derive  a  shriek 
from  those  who  have  learned  history  by  not  studying 
it,  it  is  strictly  true.     Only  the  gross  ignorance  of  cen- 


86  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

turies  of  closet  historians  biased  by  political  and  re- 
ligious prejudice,  untravelled,  and  apparently  pledged 
not  to  read  any  original  source,  could  have  brought  us 
to  such  basic  misconception  of  the  Repartimiento  and 
the  Encomienda  as  to  class  them  with  our  own  slave- 
holding.  Both  were  temporary  devices ;  both  were 
apprenticeships  of  the  Indian  to  civilization;  both 
bore  as  hard  on  him  as  a  training  school  with  us  bears 
on  lazy  or  unwilling  boys ;  both  were  training  schools, 
as  merciful  in  design  and  as  justified  by  the  graduates 
as  our  own.  To  such  as  find  the  testimony  of  Hum- 
boldt inefficient,  there  could  be  no  more  useful  read- 
ing than  the  laws  of  Spain  as  to  the  aborigines — the 
highest  minded,  most  complete,  and  most  noble  "  In- 
dian policy  "  ever  framed  by  man. 


VIII 

AN  UNFAMILIAR  PAGE 

BUT  what  may  seem  the  most  millennial  function  of 
the  Ministerio  de  Fomento  is  that  it  encourages  even 
— literature !  Lest  this  announcement  cause  an  inva- 
sion of  Mexico  by  our  waste-basketed  hordes  (whose 
only  present  refuge  is  the  shrewd  but  cruel  publica- 
tions set  on  the  corner-stone  that  all  other  editors  are 
conspiring  against  genius),  let  me  hasten  to  assure 
them  that  this  paternal  government  would  precisely 
not  publish  their  efforts. 

Mexico,  of  course,  has  as  yet  neither  great  publish- 
ing-houses nor  a  great  book-market,  and  there  is  no 
one  to  undertake  a  publication  as  a  legitimate  invest- 
ment. Yet  Mexico  is — as  she  has  been  for  centuries 
— far  from  poor  in  deep  students,  broad  historians, 
and  able  literary  men.  Here  steps  in  the  Ministry  of 
Encouragement,  backed  by  its  own  splendid  publish- 
ing-office and  by  a  conservative  judgment,  and  fathers 
the  issue  of  whatsoever  book  is  deemed  worthy.  It 
has  done  a  great  deal  for  modern  Mexico.  It  pub- 
lishes the  great  historic  contributions  of  my  honored 
friend  Lie.  Alfredo  Chavero,  and  those  of  the  lamented 
Icazbalceta ;  the  valuable  monographs  of  Peflafiel  and 
Garcia-Cubas ;  even  matter  so  literary  as  the  charm- 
ing volumes  of   my  muy  leal  young  comrade   Luis 


88  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

Gonzalez  Obregon — who  is  doing  for  the  legends  of 
colonial  Mexico  what  has  been  so  superbly  done  for 
those  of  colonial  Peru  by  Ricardo  Palma.  All  these 
works  are  suitably  issued ;  and  some,  like  the  great 
codices,  at  enormous  expense,  and  in  a  style  which 
could  not  be  surpassed  anywhere.  Meantime  the 
author  pays  for — the  white  paper,  at  most ! 

The  whole  literary  impulse  in  Mexico  is  an  honor- 
able story,  and  strangely  interesting.  A  romance  as 
chivalrous  as  the  Crusades,  and  far  more  startling — 
the  supreme  adventure,  indeed,  in  the  history  of  man 
— the  Conquest,  curiously  enough,  seems  to  have  in- 
spired thought  rather  than  exaltation.  It  has  never 
had  its  Homer,  nor  even  its  Virgil ;  but  its  Caesar,  its 
Pliny,  its  Strabo,  and  its  Herodotus — they  have  risen 
by  twins  and  triplets.  There  was  never  such  another 
text  for  balladry ;  but  the  poets  seem  to  have  been 
too  busy  marching  superhuman  marches,  conquering 
"  empires,"  and  studying  the  overwhelming  problems 
the  New  World  set  upon  their  slate.  A  few  did  break 
unpredestined  into  heroic  verse — like  the  "  Peregrino 
Indiano"  and  dashing  Villagran,  arcades  ambo  of  sor- 
ry verse,  though  precious  chronicling.*  But  it  is 
striking  all  along  that  these  soldiers  of  fortune — hu- 
man enough  to  fight  for  gold,  feudal  enough  to  fight 
as  hard  for  the  holy  faith,  crazy  enough  even  to  ad- 
venture for  pure  adventure's  sake — were,  after  all,  of 
the  calibre  intellectually  sobered  rather  than  made 
drunk  by  the  realities  which  outdazzled  all  dreams. 


*  Villagran's  epic  of  the  New  Mexican  conquest  is  one  of  the 
most  important  and  one  of  the  most  interesting  "  sources  "  we 
have  on  the  history  of  any  part  of  the  American  Union. 


AN  UNFAMILIAR  PAGE  89 

Spanish  America  became,  with  the  Conquest,  the  most 
active  scene  of  original  study  in  the  world.  In  1536 
the  printing-press  began,  in  the  City  of  Mexico,  to 
embalm  the  labors  of  the  host  of  scholars  who  were 
attacking  the  linguistic,  geographic,  and  philosophic 
mysteries  of  the  New  World.  Before  Shakespeare 
was  born,  American  literature  had  its  beginnings  in  a 
library  of  volumes  printed  in  America  in  a  score  of  orig- 
inal American  languages,  besides  the  mass  in  Span- 
ish. The  first  book  printed  in  the  New  World  was 
Fray  Juan  de  Estrada's  Escala  Espiritual para  llegar 
al  cielo  ("  Spiritual  Ladder  for  reaching  Heaven "), 
a  translation  of  S.  Juan  Climaco.  It  was  printed  in 
the  beginning  of  1537,  but,  unfortunately,  no  copy  is 
known  to  have  withstood  the  wear  and  tear  of  the 
theological  schools,  in  which  it  was  a  text-book.  It 
was  printed  by  Juan  Pablos,  the  first  printer  in  this 
hemisphere,  the  foreman  of  the  first  American  pub- 
lishing-house— that  of  the  famous  Juan  Cromberger,  of 
Seville.  The  real  credit  of  these  beginnings  of  Amer- 
can  literature  belongs  to  Fray  Juan  de  Zumarraga, 
first  Bishop  of  Mexico.  This  really  notable  man,  in 
conjunction  with  the  first  and  greatest  of  all  Spanish 
viceroys,  Don  Antonio  de  Mendoza,  made  a  contract 
with  Cromberger  and  brought  the  first  printing-press 
to  America.  Cromberger  (though  early  Mexican  edi- 
tions bear  his  imprint)  never  crossed  the  ocean.  After 
his  death  (1540)  Pablos  appears  on  the  portadas  as 
publisher.  He  was  a  Lombard ;  and,  for  his  circum- 
stance, a  good  workman.  The  printing-house  was  at 
the  southwest  corner  of  the  streets  De  la  Moneda  and 
Cerrada  de  Santa  Teresa.  The  first  book  left  to  us  of 
those  first  printed  in  America  is  entitled : 


90  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

BREVE  Y  MAS  COMPENDIOSA  DOCTRINA 
CHRISTIANA  EN  LENGUA  MEXICANA  Y 
C A  STELLA NA,  que  contiene  las  cosas  mas  necesdrias 
de  nuestra  santa  fi  catholica,  para  aprovechamiento 
destos  indios  naturales  y  salvation  de  sits  dnimas.  Con 
licencia  y  privilegio. 

The  colophon  reads : 

A  hour  a  y  gloria  de  Nuestro  Senor  Jesu-Christo,  y  de 
la  Virgen  Saiitissima  su  madre,  fue"  impresa  esta 
DOCTRINA  CHRISTIANA  por  mandado  del  senor 
don  ERA  Y  JUAN  DE  ZUMARRA  G -A,  primer  obispo 
desta  gran  ciudad  de  Tenuchtitlan,  Mexico,  DESTA 
NUEVA  ESPANA,  y  d  su  cost  a,  en  casa  de  Juan 
Cromberger,  auo  de  mill  y  quinientos  y  treinta  y  nueve. 

"  Brief  and  more  compendious  Christian  Doctrine, 
in  the  Mexican  [Nahuatl]  and  Spanish  languages, 
containing  the  most  necessary  things  of  our  holy 
Catholic  faith,  for  the  benefit  of  these  native  Indians 
and  the  salvation  of  their  souls.  Published  by  au- 
thority." 

"To  the  honor  and  glory  of  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  of  the  Most  Holy  Virgin  his  mother,  this  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  was  printed  to  the  order  of  Fray 
Juan  de  Zumarraga,  first  Bishop  of  this  great  city  of 
Tenuchtitlan,  Mexico,  of  this  New  Spain,  and  at  his 
cost,  in  the  house  of  Juan  Cromberger,  year  of  one 
thousand  five  hundred  and  thirty-nine." 

The  third  American  book,  so  far  as  known,  was  the 
Manual  de  Adultos,  of  whose  last  page  and  colophon 
I  give  a  facsimile  at  scale : 


GUILLERMd    I'RIETO    AND    HIS    DAUGHTER 


AN   UNFAMILIAR  PAGE  91 


t>erro*  t  $oe  fodos  Ice  61  fcerro?  6Ios  lOclos.  i£ri!a  tw.rrviij 
fa.iTcrvi}.ooDi^Seenu€CWDdlolafefaliia:l€e  poi  paKrpe 
fafeuefe  encieoa  oicl^x)  la  fe  fnloa.r&rrtj.oooe  oi^e  foi  eilc  ice 
enerte.iSnla  mifma  ela  fa3.tj.r*.|.o6oeoi>e  el  Xlgufteno  ^o^ 
Da:lee  el  mtfterio  61 3o:oan.  re.naj.o6oe  oije  18  o  ^ppa  a  f  upa 
fpecielee  no  pjopjta  I'pecte  fu^a.re.tric.  oonoe  ot>c  £lqite  qi 
^■pfcNgfa  afirma  ler  ,$>p$>eta:leeaqfTo  ql  ,ppl?eta  f  ma?  q  ppfe 
ta.  ffcnel  mifmo  re.oooeoije  jDemaoaoo  lo  lee  omanonoo  lo » 
^nla^|a.rrr.fa3.j.fl.iii?.re.oonoeoi5eoe  la  TRefurrecfcalpe 
oerefurrea6.yenl.re.n|.oonoeoi52^ambievaca^cflaru2 
*Uio.i&ila  ^>o/a.n:n.fa5".i).re.m'.H>onoeol5ey  lojcolocartee 
E 108  coloca.^  enl  re.ftnal  oonoe  oije  Xe  penerra:lee  lo  pene 
cra.Snla  |^jfl.jcTP/.fa5.tj.re4n.^ni'Oonoeoi5e.  y  el  muoo  te 
^jana:lee^  la  l^ajana.y  eill.rf .rrrt'.oonoe  oije  ^ia  no  pe^ 
qnaieeoia  trio  pequa.J&ila  jpofa.rrru).fe>.j.re.  j.oonoeop£ 
^powo:le«EleperoorK>.ibifa  l;>^ 
oe  oi5e.£nel  oilatanlee  enlo  oila  rar* 

C%ip«miore  etTe  XRbamial  oe  £?outt08  en  !a  gra  duoao  5 
23£>enco  po?maoaoo  ftos  Ifteuereoilhrooo  Serious  0b\li 
poo  6la  mieua  £fpaiia  z  a  fus  erpefes:en  cafa  6  'Jna  jCrcm/ 
berger.  £lno  6l  nacimleto  6  nueftro  feno?  gdii  £3?&o  o  1  ru!l; 
tquirrietos^quarera.^l  .pij.oiasolmes  o^ejicbK. 

LAST   PAGE  AND   COLOPHON   OF   THE   THIRD   BOOK   PRINTED   IN   THE 
NEW   WORLD 

Manual  de  Adultos,  Mexico,  1540 


The  colophon  reads,  translated  : 

"  This  Manual  for  Adults  was  printed  in  the  great 
City  of  Mexico  by  order  of  the  Most  Reverend  Bishops 
of  New  Spain,  and  at  their  expense,  in  the  house  of 
Juan  Cromberger.  Year  of  the  birth  of  Our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  forty. 
On  the  13th  day  of  the  month  of  December." 

The  fourth  book  departed   from   abstract   religion 


92  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

to  news  with  a  moral,  and  is  entitled  (by  interpreta- 
tion): 

Account  of  the  frightful  Earthquake  which  just  lately 
has  befallen  in  the  city  of  Guatemala.  A  thing  of 
great  wonder,  and  a  great  example  for  us  all,  that  we 
amend  our  sins  and  be  prepared  whenever  God  shall  be 
pleased  to  call  us. 

The  colophon  carries  the  imprint  of  Cromberger 
and  date  of  1541 — the  year  of  the  catastrophe.  That 
was  rapid  news-gathering  for  those  days.  The  terre- 
moto,  of  course,  is  that  most  dramatic  one  in  North 
American  history  in  which  the  Volgan  de  Agua  burst 
its  crater  and  drowned  the  young  Guatemalan  capital 
and  thousands  of  its  settlers.  Among  them  was  Dona 
Beatriz  de  la  Cueva,  the  wife  of  Pedro  de  Alvarado. 

But  of  course  the  bulk  of  the  sixteenth-century  books 
published  in  America  were  purely  religious — and  the 
great  majority  of  them  for  the  instruction  of  the  Ind- 
ians, who  were  fast  learning  to  read  and  write  in  the 
schools  founded  by  Pedro  de  Gante  and  his  fellow- 
missionaries.  There  were  vocabularies,  catechisms, 
etc.,  in  Nahuatl,  Mixtec,  Zapotec,  Otomi,  Huaxtec, 
Utlatec,  Tarasca,  Chiapanec,  Zoque,  Chinantec,  Tzen- 
dal,  Chuchona,  etc.,  not  to  mention  books  of  law, 
medicine,  sermons,  history,  and  the  like,  in  Spanish 
and  Latin. 

The  first  wood-engraving  printed  in  the  New  World 
was  the  title-page  of  Juan  Gerson's  *  Tripartito,  1544. 

The  first  music  published  in  America  f  came  from 

*  Perhaps  the  real  author  of  the  Imitation  of  Christ,  general- 
ly attributed  to  Thomas  a  Kempis. 

t  Except  the  music  pages  in  Antonio  de  Espinosa's  beautiful 
Missale  Romanian  Or  dinar  ium, Mexico,  1 561,  not  now  accessible. 


plena  oommudtecu 

THE    FIRST    ENGRAVING    PUBLISHED    IN    THE    NEW    WORLD 

(From  the   Tripartita,  Mexico,  1544) 


AN   UNFAMILIAR   PAGE 


93 


this  press,  in  1584  —  a  beautiful  Psaltery  in  red  and 
black,  full  of  engravings  and  illuminated  initials. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  worth  while  to  dwell  a  little 
upon  this  phase,  since  our  collective  innocence  as  to 
pioneer  scholarship  shows  scant  amelioration.  Be- 
tween the  time  these   papers  came  out  in  Harper  s 

&dwrper98;patx>?a& 

SdufpDona. 


©c  eft  tneccptam 


metunwofUgattefn 


si 


uicemtficutCMlejct  vos.eectilosainen. 
■pfalmsjo.  109. 

THE    SECOND    MUSIC    PRINTED    IN   AMERICA 
From  the  Psalterium  Amphonarium,  Mexico,  1584 

Magazine  and  their  speedy  preparation  for  book  publi- 
cation, two  prominent  critical  journals  of  the  United 
States  have  gravely  announced — one,  that  "the  first 
book  published  in  America  was  the  Bay  Psalm-Book, 
1640";  the  other,  that  the  Jesuit  Relations  (printed  in 
France,  beginning  after  1610)  were  "the  very  first 
beginnings    of   American    literature  "  —  defining   the 


94  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

term  as  literature  written  in  America  and  concerning 
America.  Ignorance  always  dies  hard ;  doubly  hard 
when  religious  and  political  prejudice  beat  under  its  ribs. 

Another  very  striking  point  in  the  literary  history 
of  Mexico — and  one  wholly  without  parallel  in  ours — 
is  this:  In  the  first  generation  after  the  Conquest 
there  was  already  in  Mexico  a  band  of  Indian  authors, 
like  Tobar,  Zapata,  Tezozomoc,  Chimalpain,  Camargo, 
Pomar,  the  Ixtlilxochitls  (Antonio,  Fernando  A.,  and 
Fernando  P.),  and  others,  whom  no  student  of  Ameri- 
cana can  ignore.  Cortez,  like  Caesar,  wrote  his  own 
commentaries ;  and  it  is  curious  to  remember  that  up  to 
1830  no  book  was  ever  so  handsomely  published  in  the 
United  States  as  the  Lorenzana  edition  of  the  Letters 
of  Cortez  in  Mexico  in  1770.  In  all  our  own  frontier- 
ing  I  know  no  chronicle  which  half-way  reaches  the 
human  interest  of  the  True  History  of  Bernal  Diaz 
del  Castillo — the  ancient  conquistador  who  rose  up  in 
Guatemala  and  his  old  age  to  write  because  the  closet 
historian  already  "told  so  many  lies."  If  he  some- 
times grumbles  a  bit,  so  a  soldier  may  whose  teeth  are 
already  fallen  ;  but  his  story  is  so  square  and  straight 
and  full  of  heart,  so  frank  and  unpretentious,  and 
withal  so  simpdtico,  that  I  never  knew  the  man  or 
woman  who  began  it  but  devoured  it  through,  and 
went  back  to  read  it  again,  and  came  to  a  way  of  pick- 
ing it  up  when  hours  were  heavy.  No  wonder  he 
lived  past  his  hundred  years! 

Of  the  long  and  brilliant  list  of  colonial  poets,  his- 
torians, and  philosophers,  here  is  no  room  for  detail. 
Nor  of  the  later  lights,  like  "  El  Pensador  Mexicano  "* 

*  Jose  Joaquin  Fernandez  de  Lizardi. 


THE   LITTLE    CHARKO 


AN  UNFAMILIAR  PAGE  95 

and  Acufia.  Nor  of  those  who  hold  the  Mexico  of  to- 
day up  to  its  best  literary  traditions — like  the  few  I 
have  named,  and  Salvador  Diaz  Miron  (foremost  of 
living  Mexican  poets,  though  he  occupies  a  cell  in  San 
Juan  de  Ulua),  and  Juan  de  Dios  Peza,  the  graceful 
improvisador  of  the  hearth-side,  and  many  more. 

The  single-heartedness  of  letters  in  a  land  wherein 
authorship  has  not  taken  stature  as  an  alternative  from 
waitering  and  counter-jumping,  stands  out  strongly  in 
the  wide  affliction  over  the  death  of  Prieto.  It  is  a 
simple  and  genuine  grief,  such  as  more  involved  socie- 
ties less  and  less  feel.  Perhaps  quite  as  striking 
proof  of  the  very  primitive  social  atmospheres  of  the 
awakened  republic,  is  the  fact  that  this  most  original 
and  most  popular  of  Mexican  poets  was  long  a  promi- 
nent figure  in  national  politics — and  an  honor  to  them. 
His  eloquence  saved  Juarez  in  Guadalajara;  and  his 
patriotism,  fervid  in  ideals  and  spotless  under  tempta- 
tions, was  as  signal  as  his  literary  gift.  He  was  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  under  Arista,  Alvarez,  and  Judrez  ; 
and  in  the  sequestration  of  the  Rcforma  the  almost  in- 
calculable estates  of  the  Church  passed  uncounted 
through  his  hands.  But  fancy  Longfellow  being  called 
to  the  cabinet ! 

Guillermo  Prieto,  whose  fine  career  was  closed  by 
death  March  2,  1897,  was  not  only  the  dean  of  modern 
Mexican  poets,  but  probably  also  the  most  valuable  to 
his  contemporaries  and  posterity  of  all  the  list.  He 
was  in  effect  the  Mexican  laureate,  not  because  the 
greatest  poet,  but  because  the  most  national.  His 
brilliant  imagination  and  clear  perception  ranged  not 
upon  a  borrowed  Parnassus,  but  in  the  no  less  inspir- 
ing and   much  fresher  Mexico  of  his  day;   and  the 


g6  THE  AWAKENING  OF   A  NATION 

romances  of  his  Musa  Callejera  will  never  lose  their 
charm.  They  will  remain  not  only  favorites  of  the  soil, 
but  precious  documents  to  the  historian  and  student 
of  manners.  They  paint  exactly  and  vividly  the  types 
of  the  times  now  gone — and  perhaps  nowhere  else  so 
well  portrayed — at  once  the  china  of  the  beaver  skirts 
and  the  seiiorita  cursi  of  the  tenements,  the  charro  in 
wide  calzoneras  and  sombrero  j'arano,  and  the  ignorant 
but  supercilious  polio  of  the  aristocracy.  All  the  pas- 
sions and  all  the  ideals  of  the  people,  their  vices  and 
their  virtues,  found  in  Prieto  their  most  sympathetic 
and  their  most  graphic  translator.  His  Romancer o 
Nacional,  which  sings  arms  and  the  men  of  the  Mexi- 
can Independence,  while  equal  in  popularity,  and  per- 
haps in  quality,  will  hardly  last  so  long.  Events  (and 
the  years  from  Hidalgo  on  were  thick -starred  with 
gallant  deeds)  have  always  chroniclers  enough,  but 
types  and  manners  pass  and  are  forgotten.  Since  the 
Conquest  itself,  with  its  wholly  unparalleled  ethno- 
graphic records,  there  has  been  no  other  epoch  of 
Mexican  life  so  perfectly  pictured  in  literature  as  that 
which  the  "  Highway  Muse"  made  her  own. 

Prieto  was  born  in  the  capital,  February  18,  1818. 
The  accompanying  portrait,  with  his  daughter  Maria, 
is  the  last  picture  ever  made  of  him,  and  is  an  un- 
usually faithful  likeness  of  the  brave  old  poet. 

The  standard  of  critical  appreciation  is  high  even 
with  the  newspapers — as  is  the  rule  in  Latin  America. 
The  capital  has  twenty -seven  dailies  (including  two 
excellent  ones  in  English),  and  more  weeklies  of  all 
sorts  than  one  would  care  to  count.  These  papers  do 
something  to  fill  the  gap  in  literature.  Like  Spanish- 
American  papers  in  general,  they  are  greatly  given  to 


AN  UNFAMILIAR  PAGE  97 

literary  supplements,  reprinting  now  some  European 
novel,  and  quite  as  often  a  rare  "  source  "  on  Mexico. 
A  frank,  dignified  opposition  organ  is  published  in 
the  very  home  of  the  central  government.  There  is 
no  sensational  journalism  in  Mexico.  The  newspapers 
are  modelled  after  Continental  rather  than  United 
States  fashions.  One  is  always  impressed  by  the  lack 
of  "  nose  for  news  " — particularly  news  that  smells. 


IX 

CLUBS  NOT  TRUMPS 

It  is  not  pleasant  for  the  Saxon  traveller  in  a  land 
of  infinite  good-breeding  to  confess  the  fact  that  such 
of  the  mother -tongue  as  befalls  his  ear  upon  the 
street  comes  very  largely  under  the  "  bigod  "  classifi- 
cation. There  are  fine  types  of  American  and  Eng- 
lish manhood  in  Mexico,  types  from  and  creditable 
to  metropolis  and  frontier ;  but  the  wayfarer  is  some- 
times given  to  wonder  where  they  are.  The  truth  is, 
of  course,  that  they  are  about  their  business,  leaving 
the  Queen's  and  our  English  to  be  carried  on  the 
street  by  another  sort.  Long  experience  in  the  lands 
to  the  south,  and  in  many  of  them,  breeds  vast  respect 
for  Spanish-American  tolerance. 

Outside  of  the  individuals  of  decency,  two  broad 
classes  of  Americans  invade  these  countries — and  make 
it  a  wonder  of  forbearance  that  their  next  country- 
man is  not  shown  the  door.  One  class  (now  perforce 
dwindling)  proceeds  upon  the  pickhandle  policy.  If 
one  of  these  blanked  dagos  does  not  comprehend  or 
is  a  trifle  slow — why,  fetch  him  one  over  the  head 
with  the  nearest  club.  This  is  the  way  to  get  respect 
among  the  bloody  heathen.  The  other  class  has  for 
fetich  not  the  bull,  but  the  fox.  It  is  self-evident  that 
people  who  do  not  talk  English  must  be  dishonest. 


CLUBS    NOT  TRUMPS  99 

Therefore,  if  you  would  succeed  in  business,  "  fix " 
them.  In  both  classes  it  is  equally  etiquette  to  blacken 
the  virtue  of  the  women,  the  courage  of  the  men,  and 
the  brains  of  the  race,  loudly  and  in  all  companies. 

Here  are  the  basic  reasons  why  so  many  Americans 
have  made  shipwreck  in  Mexico ;  or,  succeeding  finan- 
cially, have  earned  the  contempt  of  the  people  and 
of  self-respecting  travellers.  Much  as  they  are  other 
things,  they  are  most  of  all  fools.  Fancy  a  Turk, 
without  a  word  of  English,  going  into  business  in 
New  York  on  those  principles. 

The  day  of  the  pickhandle  is  played  out.  The 
Mexican  peon  is  ignorant  and  slow,  but  he  is  a  Solo- 
mon beside  those  who  kick  him.  And  any  man  who 
is  fit  to  control  any  men  (naturally  beginning  with 
himself)  can  manage  them  and  get  good  work  out  of 
them.  The  Chihuahua  water-works,  for  instance,  were 
built  by  an  American  engineer,  John  E.  McCurdy, 
with  only  one  assistant.  All  the  workmen  were  Mex- 
ican peons ;  and  I  know  personally  that  for  that  hon- 
orable type  of  the  American  rover  the  poorest  peon 
in  Chihuahua  would  do  anything.  And  it  is  so  in 
my  experience  of  all  Latin  America — as  a  fairly  sen- 
sible man  might  know  without  experience. 

As  for  the  "  fixers,"  they  waste  money  (generally 
that  of  other  people)  and  gain  contempt.  There  is 
no  more  need  of  bribery  in  modern  Mexico  than  in 
New  Hampshire.  For  that  matter,  I  have  ransacked 
Spanish  America  with  as  little  friction,  perhaps,  as 
traveller  ever  had  there — and  with  not  the  downiest 
temper  known  of  men — and  the  largest  bribe  I  ever 
offered  was  a  native  cigarette  and  a  decent  greeting. 
The   American   corporation   which  does   by   far   the 


IOO  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

widest  business  (geographically)  in  Mexico,  and  has 
most  numerous  touch  with  the  people — Wells,  Fargo 
&  Co.'s  Express — conducts  its  affairs  there,  as  at  home, 
with  something  resembling  common -sense.  It  has 
never  found  it  necessary  in  Mexico  to  knock  down 
and  drag  out  any  one ;  nor  yet  to  rub  its  thumb  upon 
its  two  first  fingers  under  any  Mexican's  nose.  It  has 
found  money  and  honor  in  the  republic ;  while  tup- 
penny hucksters  have  gone  smash  by  taking  the  Mex- 
icans for  fools,  slaves,  and  menials. 

"  How  are  you  getting  on  ?"  asked  an  American, 
in  the  capital,  of  the  head  of  a  great  enterprise. 

"  First  rate.     And  you  ?" 

"  We-ell,  not  to  brag  of.  I  don't  know  why,  either, 
for  our  manager  is  as  sharp  as  tacks.  You  bet  he 
won't  stand  any  d — d  nonsense !" 

"  Maybe  you  would  do  better,"  said  the  successful 
man,  quietly,  "  to  find  a  manager  who  knows  when 
and  where  to  stand  a  little  '  nonsense.'  You  remem- 
ber that  we  are  not  at  home.  We  have  come  to  do 
business  among  a  people  whose  ways  are  not  our 
ways.  It  may  be  wise  not  to  try  to  change  them  all 
at  once." 

An  astounding  chapter  might  be  written  on  the 
barbarisms  and  the  solecisms  of  the  too  general  tour- 
ist and  fortune-seeker,  but  I  have  not  the  heart  to 
spin  it  out.  Some  of  the  expositions  I  have  seen 
with  these  eyes  could  hardly  find  credence  among 
those  who  have  never  observed  their  neighbor  away 
from  home.  They  would  make  an  amusing  list,  per- 
haps; but,  after  all,  the  point  of  the  joke  is  turned  the 
wrong  way  for  an  American  to  hug.  He  may  not 
lack  the  sense  of  humor,  and  yet  not  find  supremely 


CLUBS   NOT  TRUMPS  IOI 

"  funny"  the  drunken  consul,  the  misfit  minister,  the 
lay  boor,  whose  antics  discredit  not  them  alone,  but  the 
country  of  whose  good  name  he  is  tender.  He  may 
smile  at  the  ignorances  which  are  so  deep  as  to  seem 
incredible ;  but  the  heartlessness  and  soullessness  of  it 
all  are  more  like  to  turn  him  sad. 

I  cannot  do  justice  to  the  infinite  courtesy  of  a  peo- 
ple to  whom  so  many  strangers  show  so  little.  From 
beggar  to  prince,  the  Spanish  American  has  the  heri- 
tage of  breeding.  His  address  would  grace  a  court, 
and  it  lends  a  fine  distinction  to  the  hovel.  There 
have  been  travellers  so  naive  as  to  tax  him  with  in- 
sincerity. "Your  house,  sir,"  he  says  to  you;  and 
these  sheer  Saxons  are  deeply  grieved  that  he  does 
not  give  them  a  bill  of  sale.  That  he  gives  a  hospital- 
ity no  land  ever  surpassed — and  few  equal — is  noth- 
ing. He  says  the  house  is  yours,  and  he  doesn't 
move  out.  How  insincere  !  Perhaps  we  have  pre- 
served, amid  the  evolution  of  American  humor,  some 
trace  of  the  insular  ancestry. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  have  found  the  Spanish 
American  not  only  of  incomparably  more  tact,  but  of 
fully  as  deep  sincerity  as  my  countrymen.  Speech  is 
currency ;  and  the  more  flowery,  the  more  discount 
from  its  face.  But  it  is  sure  that  when  the  don  says 
"  Su  casa,  seiior"  it  is  actually  yours  for  all  the  uses 
of  an  honored  guest,  and  to  an  extent  that  does  not 
in  any  way  obtain  between  us  and  strangers  in  our 
homes.     Hospitality  is  Latin  in  fact  as  in  name. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  quality  of  this  courtesy  is 
its  democracy.  The  Saxon,  even  in  a  republic,  is  po- 
lite to  his  friends  and  superiors,  if  he  can  be  polite  at 
all.     The  Iberian  is  polite  to  every  one — to  his  ser- 


102  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

vants,  the  beggar  at  the  curb,  the  foreigner  with  nose 
aloft.  In  more  than  a  dozen  years  of  intimacy  with 
his  lands  I  have  never  found  one  flaw  in  his  manners. 
A  courtesy  has  never  been  denied  me  in  Spanish 
America — and  in  my  business  I  have  had  to  look  for 
courtesies  at  the  hands  of  presidents  and  paupers. 
My  travels  have  not  been  with  reference  to  ease,  but 
to  find  out ;  and  in  a  majority  of  them  I  have  been 
dependent  upon  the  penetrability  of  the  people — for 
where  one  goes  who  would  really  learn  an  undevel- 
oped country,  money  is  not  enough.  No  door  was 
ever  shut  to  me  by  any  Spanish  American,  nor  even 
by  any  Indian  of  Spanish  speech,  in  the  wildest  and 
poorest  corner  between  Colorado  and  Chile.  I  have 
been  gently  forced  to  sleep  on  the  one  bed  of  a  hovel 
while  for  me  the  aged  hosts  slept  on  the  dirt  floor;  I 
have  come  in  the  tatters  of  a  long  mountaineering  to 
a  princely  hacienda  and  found  a  prince's  welcome,  not 
as  Anybody,  but  as  a  man.  For  a  trifling  example, 
in  this  last  overrunning  of  Mexico  the  photographs  I 
wished  to  make  called  me  upon  over  three  hundred 
roofs — of  hovels  and  palaces,  stores  and  churches — 
and  I  remember  every  one  of  them  for  a  pleasure, 
savored  by  the  unvarying  courtesy  which  robbed  my 
wholesale  trespass  of  its  natural  reluctances. 


X 

THE    MAN 

When  you  have  passed  through  Purgatory  (and  in 
Mexico  one  need  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  die  for 
the  itinerary,  since  that  is  a  pet  name  of  the  salon 
contraesquina  from  the  Hall  of  Ambassadors),  when 
you  have  left  to  their  pain  and  surprise  at  your  prefer- 
ment the  fifty  or  so  of  politicians,  concessionaires, 
senators,  hacendados,  and  Indian  servant-folk,  cooling- 
themselves-the-heels  in  "  Limbo,"  then  you  are  on  the 
threshold  of  a  notable  experience.  For  you  are  to 
meet  what  is  probably  the  greatest  figure — as  it  is  un- 
questionably the  most  romantic — in  the  world's  poli- 
tics this  half-century. 

To  any  unglazed  wits  there  is  sudden  and  sharp 
significance  in  the  way  yonder  door  swings.  An  un- 
prepared Indian  would  know  instantly  that  Somebody 
was  coming ;  for  here  already  is  the  clew  of  force  in 
equilibrium.  The  figure  which  advances  by  something 
so  wholly  unlike  the  strenuous  Saxon  stride,  so  equal- 
ly impressive,  yet  far  more  graceful ;  so  supple  as  a 
puma,  yet  without  a  suggestion  of  stealth ;  so  instinct 
at  once  with  frankness  and  dignity,  with  power  and 
ease — it  is,  for  all  the  distracting  windows  at  its  back, 
as  gallant  a  presence  as  one  will  know.  You  hear  a 
mellow,  direct,  expressive  voice,  you  grasp  a  fine,  firm, 


104  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

dry  hand,  and  before  you  know  it  you  are  seated  vis- 
a-vis with  the  creator  of  a  new  factor  in  American 
destiny. 

It  may  occur  to  you  presently  that,  as  the  chairs 
stand,  your  face  is  given  over  to  be  cross-examined  by 
the  windows,  while  his  is  excused  by  the  shadow.  Pos- 
sibly you  will  also  come  to  realize  that  this  is  the  least 
searchlight  turned  upon  you.  Yet  as  your  pupils 
grow  wonted  and  you  find  your  way  deeper  into 
those  remarkable  eyes,  which  are,  after  all,  not  abusing 
their  advantage,  there  is  no  feeling  of  embarrassment. 
They  are  eyes  that  can  read — you  will  not  need  to  be 
told  that — and  eyes  that  mean  to  read.  But  they  are 
frank,  courteous,  friendly  eyes ;  and  you  are  sure  you 
like  them — and  sure  you  like  everything  that  goes 
with  them.  It  seems  to  be  established  that  no  man 
has  talked  with  Diaz  directly,  free  from  the  unapt 
interpreter's  awful  aid,  but  came  away  a  little  awed,  a 
great  deal  impressed,  and  very  largely  won.  It  has 
been  one  secret  of  this  marvellous  career  that  it  is 
impossible  to  doubt  the  sincerity  of  the  man.  It  is 
vouched  for  by  face  and  voice,  and  inheres  in  the  very 
carriage — no  scrub  can  walk  quite  like  that.  At  the 
same  time  the  impression  of  reserve  is  fully  as  strong. 
It  is  a  purely  leonine  type — not  by  bulk  or  shag,  but 
by  look  and  port — and  with  no  suggestion  of  the  fox 
or  his  cousin  wolf. 

A  man  of  five  feet  eight,  erect  as  the  Indian  he  is 
disproportionately  confounded  with,  quick  as  the  Ibe- 
rian he  far  more  nearly  is,  a  fine  agreement  of  unusual 
physical  strength  and  still  more  unusual  grace,  with 
the  true  Indian  trunk  and  the  muscular  European 
limbs,  Diaz  is  physically  one  man  in  twenty  thousand. 


THE    MAN  105 

The  single  infusion  of  aboriginal  blood  (and  that  at 
the  beginning  of  this  century)  is  an  inheritance  much 
more  visible  in  his  figure  than  in  his  face.  The  feat- 
ures and  expression  are  essentially  of  Spain ;  it  is 
only  in  full  repose  that  the  face  recalls  that  certain 
hauteur  and  inscrutableness  of  the  first  Americans. 
But  the  superb,  deep  chest  and  capacious  barrel,  the 
fortress  of  vitality,  are  pretty  certainly  derived  from 
an  out -door  ancestry.  On  the  other  hand,  just  such 
legs  do  not  grow  upon  the  Indian,  nor  upon  any  ath- 
lete who  has  not  made  conquest  of  the  horse.  This 
man  seems  to  have  taken  the  best  from  both  types. 

There  are  young  old  men  everywhere,  but  this  is 
the  freshest  veteran  in  my  knowledge.  By  the  lithe 
step,  the  fine  ruddy  skin,  whose  capillaries  have  not 
yet  learned  to  clog  or  knot,  by  the  keen,  full  eye,  or 
the  round,  flexible  voice,  it  seems  a  palpable  absur- 
dity to  pretend  that  this  man  has  counted  not  only 
sixty-seven  years,  but  years  of  supreme  stress.  If  in 
forty  of  them  he  ever  knew  a  comforting  certainty,  it 
must  have  been  by  faith  and  not  by  sight;  for  from 
boyhood  to  middle  life  his  face  was  always  against 
overwhelming  odds. 

If  fair  fluency  in  reading  physical  tokens  has  im- 
pressed upon  the  visitor  a  certain  conviction,  the  con- 
versation is  definitive.  Some  men  look  and  walk  like 
gods — and  talk  as  if  there  were  none.  I  have  known 
a  very  few  whose  address  carried  the  same  contagion, 
and  one  whose  words  were  as  compelling,  but  never 
another  man  whose  language,  purely  as  a  medium,  so 
captured  me.  It  is  not  the  Spanish  of  the  Real 
Acade'mia — itself  a  gallant  thing  to  be  heard,  for  its 
very  circuitousness  and   melody  and  courtly  indirec- 


106  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

tion.  Nor  yet  is  it  anything  wherewith  the  dilettanti 
of  Madrid  might  quarrel.  It  is,  though  Spanish,  em- 
phatically modern,  and  withal  reconciles  that  lurking 
contradiction.  It  is  the  most  luminous,  direct,  sin- 
ewy speech  I  have  heard  in  any  tongue — an  unlisped 
Spanish  which  leads  one  to  forgive,  for  the  moment, 
the  harshened  sibilants  of  Mexico ;  a  Spanish  swift 
but  unhurried ;  concise  as  Greek  and  as  lithe ;  force- 
ful as  clean  Saxon,  compact  as  an  Indian  tongue,  nut- 
ty as  French,  and  musical  as  no  civilized  vernacular 
can  be,  outside  of  Spanish.  Yet  it  is  the  music  of  the 
bugle,  and  not  of  the  usual  guitar.  A  paradox,  un- 
doubtedly ;  for  at  once  it  is  poised,  yet  flies  like  an 
arrow  to  the  butt ;  the  perfection  of  courtesy,  yet  not 
carelessly  to  be  disputed ;  absolutely  free  from  the 
weak  vice  of  epigram,  but  concise  beyond  parallel. 
I  have  never  talked  with  another  man  by  the  hour  at 
a  time  without  catching  him  in  one  waste  word. 

This,  at  one's  first  meeting  with  Diaz,  is  one's  first 
astonishment,  and  may  linger  among  the  latest.  Clear 
speech  means  clear  thought  —  assembled,  marshalled 
thought ;  and  speech  so  marvellously  diagrammatic 
must  refer  to  unusual  mental  processes.  And  even 
while  one  glows  at  this  apparently  unconscious  past- 
mastery  of  words,  the  larger  presence  enters.  This 
speech  is  no  mere  trick  of  mouth,  but  the  medium  of 
a  very  unusual  mind. 

It  might  be  rash  to  lug  into  any  comparison  the 
Iron  Chancellor,  but  of  actual  rulers,  republican  or 
dynastic,  there  certainly  is  not  another — if  there  may 
have  been  one — so  "  posted  "  as  the  man  of  Mexico. 
Off-hand,  without  hesitation  and  with  accuracy  (as  I 
have  often  been  at  pains  to  verify),  he  gives  whatso- 


THE    MAN  107 

ever  detail  is  desired  of  whatsoever  branch  of  govern- 
ment. He  is  more  ready  than  the  contractors  them- 
selves as  to  the  men  and  money  using  in  some  great 
work.  The  commanders  of  the  military  zones  can 
tell  you  (in  twice  the  words)  as  much  each  of  his  own 
scope  as  Diaz  can  tell  you  of  the  entire  field.  The 
superintendent  of  education  in  a  district  may  be  as 
informative  (if  you  give  him  time)  about  the  schools 
in  his  charge  as  the  creator  of  the  Mexican  public- 
school  system  is  about  the  districts  en  masse.  It  is  an 
open  secret  in  the  capital  that  the  President  not  in- 
frequently worsts  his  ministers  in  their  own  fields. 
Not  all  of  the  cabinet  are  wonders ;  but  all  are  able 
men,  and  at  least  three  of  them  extraordinary  ones.* 
I  do  not  mean  to  lay  all  this  to  the  doorstep  of  genius. 
It  is  not  more  due  to  his  most  rare  faculty  of  grasp 
than  to  his  enormous  application  for  the  mastery  of 
every  question.  And — a  genuine  test  of  breadth — he 
is  not  afraid  to  say  "  I  do  not  know."  He  ventures 
no  opinion  in  things  he  has  not  measured. 

This  strangely  direct  and  pregnant  speech,  a  model 
of  saying  most  in  speaking  least,  runs,  nevertheless, 
with  all  the  sincerity  and  the  winningness  of  a  boy. 
It  is  conclusive  without  being  oracular,  balanced  yet 
without  self-consciousness,  engaging  yet  reserved,  es- 
pecially as  the  subject  warms  him.  It  was  when  we 
came  to  schools  that  the  "autocrat"  came  suddenly 

*  The  cabinet  is  composed  as  follows :  Foreign  Relations  (and 
Vice-President  of  the  Republic),  Ignacio  M.  Mariscal ;  Interior, 
General  Manuel  Gonzales  Cosio ;  War,  General  Felipe  B.  Ber- 
riozabal ;  Communications,  General  Francisco  Z.  Mena;  En- 
couragement, Manuel  Fernandez  Leal ;  Justice  and  Public  In- 
struction, Joaquin  Baranda;  Treasury,  Jose  Ives  Limantour. 


IOS  THE   AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

to  his  feet  and  translated  me  to  a  distant  inner  room 
and  showed  me  his  private  maps.  The  big  plan  of 
the  capital  bristled  with  pins,  their  heads  of  three  col- 
ors (this  was  just  before  the  federal  round-up  of  schools 
in  July,  1896  ;  now  there  are  but  two  colors)  ;  and  his 
knowledge  of  the  schools  all  and  several,  when  and 
where  and  how,  was  as  graphic  as  the  map  itself.  It 
was  less  surprising  when  he  spread  upon  the  same  en- 
gineer's table  accurate  charts  of  the  republic,  with 
their  like  pin-head  kaleidoscope  —  but  now  pins  for 
troops  and  regiments,  for  horse,  foot,  and  artillery. 
So  much  may  be  expected  of  a  right  soldier  ;  but  that 
absolute  grip  on  the  situation  by-and-large,  and  that 
ability  to  put  it  within  the  fist  of  a  rank  outsider  at 
one  handful,  are  no  part  of  the  usual  military  trap- 
pings. 

The  conceit  is  still  a  little  yonder  which  could  make 
me  dare  pretend  to  translate  that  arrowy  speech  into 
any  English  within  my  grasp.  But  of  our  conversa- 
tions there  were  two  things  so  typical  they  should  be 
saved  in  what  paraphrase  they  may.  When  once  we 
spoke  of  the  school  system  he  has  created  for  Mexico 
— the  theme  which  more  than  any  other  seemed  to 
kindle  him — and  when  he  had  given  in  five  minutes 
an  astonishing  bird's-eye  view  of  a  huge  field,  he  add- 
ed (it  seemed  to  me  with  a  fine  mingling  of  dignity 
and  pathos):  "And  the  English  is  compulsory.  So 
when  we  the  old  are  gone,  Mexico  will  have  two 
idioms." 

And  again,  when  the  theme  was  the  steps  up  which, 
one  by  one,  he  has  handed  Mexico  from  intermittent 
anarchy  to  sure  peace,  he  said,  gravely  and  with  that 
same  terseness :  "  It  needed  something  of  the  strong 


GENERAL    DIAZ    IN    l866 


THE  MAN  IO9 

hand  [la  mano  dura].  But  every  year  it  could  relax. 
Now,  though  there  are  some  who  do  not  love  '  Por- 
firio,'  all  love  peace.  So  the  fist  is  wide  open.  There 
is  full  liberty — free  schools,  free  ballot,  free  speech, 
free  press.  They  may  do  what  they  will,  so  they  do 
not  fire  a  gun  at  me." 

This  is  very  tame  beside  the  idiomatic  Spanish  in 
which  it  was  said,  but  it  is  indexical.  Here  is  the 
key-note  of  modern  Mexico — a  "  dictatorship  "  which 
has  spent  ungrudgingly  its  blood  and  its  care  for  the 
country's  progress. 

It  is  this  man,  whose  eye  and  voice  and  step  belie 
the  half  his  years,  that  has  wrought  the  Mexican  mir- 
acle. And  if  he  has  put  a  new  face  on  his  country,  it 
is  not  a  whit  more  remarkable  than  the  transforma- 
tion he  has  wrought  upon  his  own  shoulders.  This 
has  been  a  transfiguration  of  which  I  know  no  paral- 
lel. Making  due  allowance  for  the  change  of  fashion 
in  facial  landscape-gardening,  Porfirio  Diaz  was  not 
from  the  start  visibly  frontispieced  by  fate  for  all  that 
he  has  become.  Within  a  youth's  memory  he  wore 
the  mere  features  of  a  soldier.  Even  in  the  seventies 
he  might  have  been  a  chief  of  rurales.  But  to-day 
his  face  is  unmistakable,  and  a  proverb  for  "  the  hand- 
somest man  in  Mexico."  By  sheer  features  this  is 
not  true ;  but  by  the  collective  impression  it  is.  In  a 
generation  he  has  given  himself  a  new  face,  and  even 
made  over  the  shape  of  his  head.  In  all  the  breadth 
of  a  regenerated  republic  there  is  no  more  striking 
monument  to  the  thought  it  has  needed  to  turn  the 
Mexico  in  which  Juarez  died  into  the  Mexico  of  to- 
day than  the  very  head  of  the  man  who  did  it. 

This  may  naturally  raise  the  question  just  where 


110  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A   NATION 

and  when  his  real  greatness  of  spirit  began.  What 
was  his  first  motive  to  the  Presidency?  Was  it  as 
purely  patriotic  as  his  military  career  unquestionably 
had  been?  Or  was  it  a  personal  lust — later  tamed 
and  purified  by  responsibility  and  the  evolution  of 
events  ?  Was  it  the  professional  revolution  of  inde- 
pendent Latin  America — an  Out  trying  to  get  In — or 
was  it  something  more  prophetic  ?  One's  first  pre- 
sumption may  easily  be — as  mine  was  before  I  had 
earned  any  right  to  presume — that  the  revolt  against 
Juarez  and  the  upsetting  of  Lerdo  were  rather  less 
nobly  inspired  than  their  sequel. 

It  is  good  history  as  well  as  good  morals  that  no 
man  can  play  a  part  absolutely  and  always.  If  he  be 
acting,  he  will  sometimes  forget  his  role,  and  we  shall 
catch  him.  If  he  is  never  inconsistent,  then  he  can- 
not be  making  believe.  The  career  of  Diaz  seems  to  me 
to  stand  that  test,  for  it  has  been  logical  in  every  step. 
The  Pretender  could  not  have  known  all  he  was  to 
do ;  but  he  certainly  knew  very  well  what  he  was  do- 
ing. He  saw  the  consummate  need  of  his  centrifugal 
country,  and  the  only  man  who  could  fill  it.  Some- 
thing more  or  less  like  usurpation  had  become  the 
recognized  highway  to  the  Presidency — not  an  incum- 
bent, since  the  Indepejidencia  had  an  absolutely  clean 
title  of  election — and  among  the  periodic  crowd  of 
usurpers  he  knew  one  who  could  lift  the  country  per- 
manently out  of  the  reach  of  usurpation.  If  under 
our  notions  of  democracy  we  cannot  quite  grasp  the 
premise,  we  can  at  least  read  the  logic  of  his  demon- 
stration. From  the  first  he  has  walked  a  straight  and 
narrow  path  towards  the  consistent  goal.  A  cavalier 
might  well  refuse  the  advances  of  his  country's  foes, 


THE    MAN  III 

but  only  a  patriot  would  have  declined  his  country's 
proffers  as  too  generous  for  her  own  good.  There 
was  nothing  parvenu  in  the  penniless  lad  who  refused 
pay  for  his  first  military  service  ;  nor  in  the  struggling 
youth  who  declined  the  law  degree  that  Juarez  gave 
him,  and  studied  two  years  longer,  amid  arduous  du- 
ties, to  earn  it ;  nor  in  the  young  officer  who  several 
times  declined  to  be  promoted  over  the  heads  of  his 
elders,  lest  it  create  jealousies  harmful  to  the  cause ; 
nor  in  the  sudden  popular  idol  who  could  have  had 
the  Presidency  at  Maximilian's  hands — and  with  it 
the  deliverance  of  his  country — but  would  not,  be- 
cause Juarez  was  his  President. 

This  may  not  be  so  picturesque  a  conclusion  as  the 
notion  that  here  was  a  sheer  usurper,  gradually  trans- 
formed to  a  high  patriot  by  the  unfolding  of  events 
and  of  his  own  eyesight,  but  it  seems  to  tally  better 
with  the  record.  We  have  reasonable  authority,  too, 
for  knowing  a  man  by  his  fruits.  Several  Presidents 
of  Mexico  have  tried  to  do  something  for  their  coun- 
try besides  sitting  at  its  head  ;  not  all  of  them  togeth- 
er have  done  for  it  what  Diaz  has.  It  would  doubt- 
less be  a  poor  creature  who  had  no  ambitions  of  his 
own.  A  fit  selfishness  is  the  datum-plane  of  humani- 
ty, and  only  above  that  is  man's  altitude  measured — 
by  the  measure  wherewith  he  subordinates  that  ambi- 
tion to  other  things,  or  other  things  to  that  ambition. 
Diaz  has  never  needed  a  guardian,  but  neither  has  his 
country,  since  he  came  up. 

Bearing  on  the  same  point  from  another  side  is  the 
attitude  of  his  present  authority.  No  Governor  in 
our  States  is  more  accessible  than  this  President, 
plus.     He  wears  no  body-guards,  no  hedges,  no  osten- 


112  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

tation.  It  is  not  precisely  a  czar  who  gives  audience 
to  laborers,  rides  unattended  in  a  street  car,  and  often 
walks  to  his  residence  alone,  or  to  church  with  no 
more  retinue  than  his  wife.  A  man  of  warm  friend- 
ships as  of  stanch  resentments,  he  does  not  abuse  ei- 
ther. He  may  not  forget,  but  he  does  shelve,  a  personal 
grudge  whose  object  can  be  a  citizen  of  use  to  the 
republic,  and  his  whole  tenure  of  office  is  full  of  in- 
stances. As  to  his  friends,  he  remembers  a  certain 
fine  discrimination  between  Porfirio  Diaz  and  Presi- 
dent Diaz.  No  one  is  allowed  to  become  his  shadow, 
and  he  is  scrupulous  that  his  public  goings  and  com- 
ings shall  not  be  inseparably  associated  with  certain 
companions.  For,  in  his  own  words,  "  Nothing  so  ir- 
ritates a  people  as  the  insolence  of  favorites — and  all 
favorites  tend  to  insolence." 

This,  of  course,  is  a  matter  of  business  judgment. 
Outside  what  he  conceives  to  be  a  ruler's  duty  to  the 
public,  he  is  not  only  accessible,  but  notoriously 
warm-hearted.  His  career  is  as  full  of  handsome 
friendships  and  tender  mercies  as  of  uncompromising 
firmness.  One  incident,  which  I  believe  has  not  been 
published,  is  illustrative  of  the  man.  In  June,  1895, 
the  President  was  invited  to  Catorce,*  the  chief  min- 
ing camp  of  San  Luis  Potosi,  to  inaugurate  the  great 
electrical  plant  (the  first  of  its  kind  in  Mexico)  at  the 
Santa  Ana  Mine.  A  large  company  of  the  foremost 
men  in  Mexico  had  come  up  with  him  from  the  capi- 
tal, and  the  mine-owners  had  made  a  fitting  fiesta. 

*  La  Purisima  Concepcion  de  Alamos  de  Catorce.  The 
Real  (mining  camp)  was  founded  in  1773,  when  Sebastian  Co- 
ronado  and  Bernabe  Antonio  de  Zepeda  discovered  its  veins. 
They  made  it  produce  nearly  four  millions  a  year. 


THE    MAN  113 

When  Diaz  appeared  at  the  works  the  laborers  went 
wild,  and  surged  forward  upon  the  Presidential  party. 
A  stranger  might  have  fancied  this  tattered  and 
mine -stained  horde  about  to  swallow  up  the  little 
knot  of  broadclothed  statesmen.  One  grizzled  old 
Indian  in  the  van  hurled  his  shabby  hat  aloft  with  a 
stentorian  shout  above  all  the  clamor,  "  Viva  nuestro 
tata  /"*  and,  rushing  upon  the  nonplussed  President, 
caught  him  a  tremendous  hug  that  fairly  lifted  him 
from  his  feet.  Diaz  involuntarily  fell  back  a  step. 
Then  his  inscrutable  face  suddenly  resolved  in  a  smile, 
half  humorous,  half  tender;  and  as  his  friends  el- 
bowed him  out  of  the  crush  they  saw  a  tear  creeping 
down  each  cheek. 

As  the  military  history  of  Diaz  in  many  ways  sug- 
gests that  of  Grant — though  he  had  none  of  Grant's 
technical  preparation,  and  led  far  smaller  armies,  and 
had  always  to  create  them  himself  out  of  next  to 
nothing,  forging  invincible  steel  from  the  peon  mud — 
so  does  his  personal  simplicity.  At  the  opening  of 
the  lips  the  resemblance  ceases ;  but  there  was  the 
same  quietness  of  taste.  No  man  of  Latin  blood 
could  disregard  the  demands  of  ceremony  in  a  ruler ; 
no  man  of  any  blood  could  be  more  modest  in  them. 
When  and  where  etiquette  compels,  Diaz  is  splendid ; 
and  none  can  better  carry  off  the  pomp  and  circum- 
stance of  state  than  this  ascended  soldier,  who  would 
be  at  home  in  any  court.  But  outside  the  necessities 
of  occasion,  he  goes  as  unfrilled  as  our  President ; 
scrupulously  neat  and  scrupulously  simple  in  his  dress. 

*  "  Long  live  our  father !"  Tata  is  at  once  as  affectionate  as 
"  daddy,"  yet  reverent.    The  Indians  use  it  of  God. 

8 


114  THE   AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

And  while  a  tyrant  may  be  unvain,  tyrants  do  not 
walk  loose  among  their  serfs. 

There  is  a  deeper  test  of  balance  than  unpreten- 
tiousness  amid  the  temptations  of  practically  supreme 
power.  Diaz  has  remained  to  this  day  a  man  of  the 
strictest  habits.  He  has  no  vices  —  not  even  that 
sweetest  and  most  human  vice  which  is  so  easy  to  an 
autocrat.  Abstemious,  methodical,  tireless ;  work- 
ing with  remarkable  despatch  a  long  day,  yet  scrupu- 
lous that  not  even  the  nation  shall  quite  rob  his 
family  of  him  ;  early  to  bed  and  early  to  rise  ;  always 
busy  but  never  hurried ;  a  sturdy  walker ;  a  superb 
rider  of  superb  horses;  a  real  hunter  —  as  frontiers- 
men count  hunters,  and  not  by  the  category  of  titled 
trigger-pullers  who  butcher  tame,  fenced  game  —  the 
private  life  of  this  curious  man  is  as  wholesome  as  his 
administration,  and  has  broadly  aided  it. 

It  has  been  a  greater  thing  to  conquer  the  hearts 
than  the  hands  of  a  nation.  I  can  remember  when 
to  scratch  a  Mexican  college-boy  was  pretty  generally 
to  find  an  anti-Porfirista ;  and  every  priest's  robe  cov- 
ered a  Tory.  Why  ?  Well,  the  radical  objection  to 
the  President  was  —  that  he  was  President.  Sopho- 
moric  minds,  overfed  with  reading,  looked  more  to 
the  shadow  than  to  the  substance.  They  tended — as 
their  elders  sometimes  tend — to  remember  the  theory 
and  forget  the  fact.  They  failed  to  notice  that  all  of 
a  republic  is  not  the  license  of  all  to  misgovern  them- 
selves ;  that  peace,  security,  the  equal  conservation  of 
every  man's  right,  are  as  significant  of  democracy  as 
is  the  name  of  an  office ;  and  they  were  restive  over 
a  matter  of  definition.  It  was  almost  precisely  the 
same  "objection  to  federal  interference"  upon  which 


SENORA    DIAZ,    CALLED   "  CARMELITA,    THE    IDOL    OF    MEXICO" 


THE   MAN  115 

the  people  of  the  United  States  sat  en  ba?ic  a  few 
months  ago,  and  gave  verdict  for  defendant. 

But  this  last  barrier  between  Diaz  and  the  inner 
hearts  of  his  people  has  gone  down  before  his  person- 
ality. It  was  partly  by  la  mano  dura,  but  more  by 
the  clear  head  and  the  clean  record.  It  might  be  too 
much  to  call  any  man  unselfish ;  it  is  enough  when  a 
man  acts  unselfishly — and  this  is  the  root  of  this  man's 
complete  mastery.  It  has  become  inevitable,  even  to 
the  most  unthoughtful  stiff-neck,  not  only  that  he 
could  hold  his  place,  but  that  he  held  it  in  trust. 
Within  a  few  years — even  within  his  term  just  ended 
— the  last  opposition  to  Diaz  has  died  a  natural  death. 
Even  the  Church  party,  which  delivered  its  country 
up  to  the  Intervention  of  the  Philistines,  sees  now 
that  it  would  be  folly  to  exchange  a  just  opponent 
for  a  partisan  of  its  own. 

The  hold  of  Diaz  on  his  countrymen  began  in  his 
extraordinary  military  career.  Not  only  its  brilliancy, 
but  its  patriotism,  kindled  hero-worship  to  a  blaze. 
In  the  longest  and  darkest  night  that  Mexico  ever 
knew,  he  rose  early  and  shone  steadfast,  the  star  of 
hope  for  national  autonomy.  His  people,  his  govern- 
ment, and  his  foe  all  came  to  recognize  him  as  the  first 
soldier  of  Mexico.  Upon  the  head  of  this,  to  general 
surprise,  he  has  earned  a  still  rarer  distinction.  The 
greatest  general  in  Mexican  history,  he  has  also  proved 
himself  the  greatest  statesman.  And  no  less  than  his 
record  of  war  and  administration,  his  private  character 
has  conquered  the  love  of  those  whose  admiration  was 
already  stormed.  His  relations  as  husband,  father, 
and  man  have  all  been  to  the  point.  His  first  wife, 
mother  of  his  three  children,  was  a  lovable  girl,  who 


Il6  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

died  too  soon  to  share  his  full  greatness;  but  when,  in 
1883,  he  married  Carmen  Romero  Rubio,  the  daughter 
of  an  old  antagonist,  he  gave  Mexico  a  universal  idol. 
A  young  woman  of  unusual  beauty  of  person  and 
character,  highly  educated  (in  the  United  States), 
fluent  in  French  and  English  as  in  the  best  Spanish, 
"  Carmelita,"  as  she  is  lovingly  called  by  all  Mexico, 
rich  and  poor  alike,  has  been  her  husband's  comple- 
ment not  only  in  the  home  but  in  the  nation.  To 
the  social  charm  of  a  high-bred  Spanish  woman,  and 
the  heart  of  universal  womanhood,  she  adds  the  hori- 
zons of  a  modern  education.  Gracious  and  unspoiled, 
prominent  in  all  benevolences,  and  a  model  in  the 
exigent  Spanish  traditions  of  the  homekeeper,  she 
has  won  love  beyond  any  other  woman  in  Mexican 
history. 

The  Presidential  family  is  a  pleasant  one  all  through. 
Of  the  two  daughters,  one  is  married.  The  son,  Por- 
firio  junior,  has  recently  taken  his  degree  as  civil  en- 
gineer, after  as  stiff  a  course  as  if  he  had  been  a  peon's 
boy,  and  through  a  final  examination  which  was  made 
unusually  rigorous  by  his  father's  wish.  "The  Presi- 
dent's son,"  said  Diaz,  "must  have  nothing  which  he 
has  not  surely  earned." 

It  was  an  innovation  when  Diaz  declined  to  live  in 
the  national  palace.  Part  of  the  year  he  resides  in  his 
private  house  in  the  Street  of  the  Chain,  but  part  in 
the  historic  castle  of  Chapultepec — the  fabled  (and 
only  fabled)  summer  home  of  Motecuzoma,  a  palace 
of  the  Viceroys  from  Galvez*  down,  and  the  chosen 
spot  of  Maximilian  and  Carlota.     The  rock  Hill  of 

*  It  cost  that  Virey  $300,000  for  his  improvements  there. 


THE    MAN  117 

the  Grasshopper,  set  amid  immemorial  ahm'huetes, 
has  at  its  feet  the  making  of  the  noblest  park  in  the 
world,  of  its  size ;  and  no  other  palace  in  any  land 
commands  so  superb  a  view.  Below,  the  strong  spring 
of  "  Montezuma's  Bath  "  wells  up  under  the  gigantic 
trees;  and  the  twin  aqueducts,  like  inconceivable 
centipedes  turned  to  stone,  twist  away  towards  the 
city ;  and  the  outcrop  rock  is  carved  with  the  pic- 
toglyphs  of  forgotten  Aztec  war-captains.  Behind  is 
the  historic  field  of  Molino  del  Rey;  and  at  the  top, 
elbowing  the  palace,  the  military  academy  whose 
school-boys  were  defeated  by  the  army  of  the  United 
States. 


XI 

THE  LADDER 

One  tires  of  "  lives  stranger  than  romance  " — in  the 
romances ;  but,  seriously,  it  would  be  a  confident 
novelist  who  ventured  to  invent  a  career  like  that  of 
Diaz  and  date  it  in  this  century.  It  reads  rather  like 
a  chapter  from  the  Crusades  than  like  anything  we 
can  realize  as  modern  American.  Probably  no  other 
ruler  since  the  Lion  Heart  has  run  quite  such  a 
gamut 

"of  most  disastrous  chances, 
Of  moving  accidents  by  flood  and  field  ; 
Of  hair -breadth  'scapes  i' the  imminent  deadly  breach; 
Of  being  taken  by  the  insolent  foe." 

Hero  of  more  than  fifty  battles — and  not  by  helio- 
graph, but  at  the  head  of  his  men — ablaze  with  deco- 
rations when  in  full  dress,  but  with  not  enough  med- 
als to  cover  one  apiece  the  scars  that  earned  them  ; 
leader  of  desperate  charges  and  defender  of  forlorn 
hopes ;  half  a  dozen  times  prisoner,  and  as  often  es- 
caping by  the  narrowest  hazards ;  forty  years  in  ser- 
vice, and  almost  all  of  it  uphill  on  grades  that  might 
have  daunted  Sisyphus — it  is  a  wonderful  story  be- 
tween the  orphan  boy  of  Oaxaca  and  the  head  of 
modern  Mexico.     It  would  be  impossible  here  to  go 


THE  LADDER  1 19 

into  that  career  with  any  detail ;  but  the  barest  out- 
line is  significant. 

Porfirio  Diaz  was  born  in  the  city  of  Oaxaca,  Sep- 
tember 15,  1830,  on  the  eve  of  the  anniversary  of 
the  birth  of  Mexican  independence.  There  has  been 
confusion  as  to  the  locality,  and  in  the  city  itself  are 
a  score  of  contradictory  relations;  so  I  have  taken 
pains  to  be  fortified  over  his  own  hand : 

"  It  was  in  the  city  of  Oaxaca,  Street  of  La  Soledad, 
south  side,  No.  10,  in  which  house  is  now  a  sugar-fac- 
tory." 

His  father,  Captain  Jose  Faustino  Diaz,  was  of 
Asturian  stock  which  came  to  Mexico  in  the  first 
years  of  the  Conquest.  He  died  in  1833.  Dona  Pe- 
trona  Mory,  Porfirio's  forceful  mother,  brought  him 
the  drop  of  aboriginal  blood,  her  grandmother  having 
been  a  Mixteca.  She  marked  the  boy  out  for  the 
Church ;  and  after  finishing  with  the  primary  school 
at  seven,  taking  his  turn  as  errand-boy  in  a  store,  and 
going  to  the  secondary  school  from  eight  to  fourteen, 
he  entered  the  seminary.  The  family  had  lost  its 
modest  fortune,  and  he  supported  himself  by  tutoring. 
Here  he  fell  in  the  way  of  the  great  Zapotec,  Juarez, 
then  Governor  of  the  state,  who  took  a  generous  in- 
terest in  the  unguessed  lad  who  was  to  mean  so  much 
to  Mexico  and  to  Juarez. 

At  seventeen  Porfirio  volunteered,  with  some  of  his 
comrades,  for  the  war  with  the  United  States.  To 
their  grief  they  were  not  sent  to  the  front,  but  served 
as  a  home  militia — the  redoubtable  company  of  the 
"  Nothing's  Better,"  as  equivocal  townsmen  dubbed 
them. 

Against  his  mother's  hope,  his  patron's  rage,  and 


120  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

the  scandal  of  the  bishop,  the  young  theologue  soon 
decided  to  be  a  lawyer  and  not  a  priest.  Thrown  en- 
tirely on  his  own  resources,  he  kept  in  the  institute 
by  taking  pupils  and  by  the  slender  help  of  the  libra- 
rianship,  secured  for  him  by  the  Governor.  Graduat- 
ing from  the  four  years'  course,  he  entered  the  law- 
office  of  Juarez,  becoming  also  professor  of  Roman 
law  in  his  alma  mater,  and  president  of  the  law-club 
of  Oaxaca. 

His  first  taste  of  war  was  under  Herrera,  in  revolt 
against  the  usurper  Santa  Anna.  In  the  plebiscite 
Diaz  was  the  only  student  who  dared  walk  up  to  the 
tables  and  sign  against  the  tyrant ;  and  for  this  auda- 
city had  to  fly  for  his  life.  In  the  revolution  which 
ended  with  the  expulsion  of  that  strange  cross  of  ass 
and  wolf,  whom  one  of  the  most  naive  of  Mexican 
folk-songs  celebrates  in 

"La  patct  de  Sunt'  Anna," 

young  Diaz  became  Jefe  Politico  (mayor)  of  Ixtlan. 
In  this  hamlet  was  the  first  fair  scope  for  the  military 
bent  which  had  been  visible  even  in  his  childhood. 
He  drilled  the  half-naked  Indians  of  his  jefatura  on 
Sundays,  holding  them  by  dances,  a  gymnasium,  and 
the  like  artifices  until  he  had  a  really  valuable  militia. 
When  Garcia  "  pronounced "  in  Oaxaca,  the  boy 
Mayor  of  Ixtlan  marched  on  that  capital  with  his 
aborigines  and  induced  the  usurper  to  "take  it  back"; 
and  upon  Garcia's  renewal  of  the  pronunciamiento, 
Diaz  returned  and  took  the  city,  and  the  small  despot 
fled.  For  this  service  Diaz  refused  the  pay  proffered 
him.  A  little  later  he  resigned  his  post  as  Mayor  to 
become  Captain  in  the  National  Guard  at  less  than 


PORFIRIO    DIAZ,  JUN. 


THE    LADDER  121 

half  the  pay,  and  won  his  first  laurels  in  crushing  the 
rebellion  of  Jamiltepec.  Badly  wounded,  he  saw  the 
weak  point  in  the  insurgent  lines,  and  won  the  day. 
It  was  a  week  before  he  reached  a  doctor,  and  he  car- 
ried the  bullet  more  than  a  year. 

In  1858,  when  Cobos  (Conservative)  attacked  Oaxa- 
ca,  Diaz  beat  him  off,  pursued  him,  and  whipped  him 
again  at  Jalapa,  fighting  against  heavy  odds.  As  the 
war  of  the  Reforma  broadened,  Juarez  gave  the  young 
officer  the  important  post  of  Jefe  of  Tehuantepec.  In 
this  remote  corner,  unaided  by  the  beset  government 
and  sore  pressed  by  the  Conservatives  (Church  party), 
he  not  only  held  his  own  for  two  years  in  the  field, 
but  began  to  give  earnest  of  administrative  skill, 
straightening  out  the  sorry  tangle  of  public  affairs  in 
Tehuantepec,  and  trying  his  'prentice  hand  at  public 
education  and  "  better  government."  In  April,  1858, 
at  the  Hacienda  de  las  Jicaras,  he  set  the  pattern  of 
tactics  always  thereafter  characteristic  of  him  —  the 
night  march  and  the  daybreak  assault.  In  all  his 
military  career  it  was  the  case  that  the  other  man  did 
not  get  up  quite  early  enough. 

In  June  of  the  next  year  he  won  the  important  ac- 
tion of  the  Mixtequilla  and  a  lieutenant -colonelcy. 
Still  weak  from  the  operation  to  extract  the  bullet  of 
Jamiltepec,  he  defended  in  Juchitan,  and  then  con- 
voyed safely  across  the  isthmus  a  store  of  munitions 
of  war,  obeying  the  spirit  but  breaking  the  letter  of 
government  instructions  to  destroy  it  before  it  should 
fall  into  the  enemy's  hands.  In  November,  Alarcon 
having  captured  Tehuantepec,  Diaz  stormed  it  at 
dawn  with  three  hundred  men,  and  took  it  back  for 
Mexico.     In   January,  i860,  with   five  hundred   raw 


122  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

troops,  he  met  and  routed  Cobos's  superior  force  near 
Mitla,  leading  the  charge  at  the  critical  moment. 

Oaxaca  elected  him  a  deputy  to  Congress;  and 
when,  in  June,  1861,  Marquez  attacked  the  national 
capital,  Diaz  hurried  from  the  legislative  halls,  and, 
under  the  orders  of  General  Mejia,  defeated  the  revo- 
lutionists. For  this  he  was  made  Chief  of  Brigade  of 
Oaxaca.  He  pursued  Marquez  for  two  months,  and 
August  13,  1861,  attacked  the  rebels  by  night  in  Jal- 
atlaco.  It  was  a  hand-to-hand  fight,  marked  by  an- 
other of  the  almost  miraculous  escapes  which  gave 
Diaz  the  name  of  an  enchanted  life,  and  was  another 
victory  for  him. 

But  the  other  divisions  of  the  army  were  not  so 
successful;  and  President;  Juarez,  whose  greatness  lay 
rather  in  steadfastness  than  in  resource,  seemed  to 
lack  the  talent  for  unification.  His  sluggishness  per- 
mitted the  Church  party  to  gain  great  headway,  and 
at  the  same  time  his  measures  weakened  and  split  the 
Nationalists.  An  unpaid  army,  increased  taxes,  forced 
loans,  and  the  suicidal  repudiation  of  the  foreign 
debt  not  only  crippled  the  government  at  home,  but 
brought  about  its  ears  the  armed  intervention  of 
France,  England,  and  Spain.  When  the  actual  inva- 
sion began,  in  the  spring  of  1862,  Juarez  set  the  bri- 
gades of  Mejia  and  Diaz  to  make  front  against  the 
invaders,  while  he  should  gather  forces  in  the  interior. 
A  magazine  explosion  practically  wiped  out  Mejia's 
command,  and  Diaz  was  left  to  bear  the  brunt.  His 
brother  Felix,  who  was  with  him  at  the  front,  stood 
off  a  thousand  zouaves  with  a  handful  of  lancers  until 
seventy-five  per  cent,  of  his  men  were  slain  and  he 
was  wounded  and  a  prisoner.     Watching  his  chance, 


A    GLIMPSE    OF   CHAPULTEPEC 


THE    LADDER  1 23 

he  limped  towards  his  pet  horse,  flung  himself  across 
its  back,  and  escaped  through  a  rain  of  lead.  Porfirio 
covered  the  retreat  of  General  Zaragoza  on  Puebla, 
checking  the  French  at  the  hill  of  Aculzingo.  During 
the  siege  of  Puebla  which  followed,  Diaz  held  the 
most  exposed  position,  the  road  to  Amozoc.  In  the 
splendid  battle  which  gave  Mexico  one  of  her  proud- 
est anniversaries,  the  Cinco  de  Mayo  (May  5,  1862), 
Diaz  and  his  raw  men  met  on  level  ground  the  trained 
European  soldiers  of  Lorencez,  withstood  their  charges, 
turned  them,  and  chased  them. 

In  January,  1863,  the  French  general  Forey  laid 
siege  to  Puebla  with  an  outnumbering  force  and  by 
precise  stages.  In  one  of  the  many  assaults  on  the 
corner  held  by  Diaz  the  zouaves  broke  into  the  first 
court-yard  of  his  stronghold,  the  Meson  de  San  Marcos. 
Diaz  ran  back  alone  and  fired  the  solitary  field-piece 
which  commanded  the  gate,*  mowing  down  the  fore- 
most of  the  enemy;  then,  at  the  head  of  his  reani- 
mated men,  whipped  out  the  storming  party  and 
closed  the  breach.  On  May  17th  the  beleaguered 
city  had  to  capitulate,  but  Diaz  refused  to  take  parole 
with  the  other  officers,  and  soon  made  his  escape. 

At  this  juncture  President  Juarez  offered  to  make 
him  Secretary  of  War  or  commander  of  an  army 
corps;  but  Diaz  declined  both  honors,  on  the  ground 
that  such  promotion  of  so  young  a  man  would  cause 
harmful  jealousies.     He   covered  the  retreat  of  the 


*  He  writes  me  that  the  popular  story  of  his  having  loaded 
it  with  cobblestones  (for  want  of  ball)  is  untrue.  The  gun  was 
loaded,  and  "  all  he  did  "  was  to  run  back  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy  and  discharge  it. 


124  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

national  government  from  Mexico  to  San  Luis  Potosi, 
reorganized  the  army  as  commander-in-chief,  and  ac- 
cepted command  of  the  Army  of  the  East,  with  juris- 
diction from  Puebla  to  Central  America.  Marching 
down  from  Queretaro  with  a  small  force,  across  the 
states  of  Mexico  and  Michoacan,  under  the  very  noses 
of  the  enemy,  and  capturing  Tasco  en  route,  he 
reached  Oaxaca  and  established  headquarters.  His 
commission  as  general  of  division,  the  highest  rank 
in  the  Mexican  army,  came  next.  In  three  years  the 
Nobody  of  Oaxaca  had  risen  to  be  second  only  to  the 
President  of  the  republic,  and  almost  the  last  hope  of 
his  country.  The  capital,  the  chief  cities  and  ports, 
and  nearly  all  the  northern  states  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy;  the  very  government  was  vagrant;  but 
down  in  Oaxaca  Diaz  kept  a  "  solid  south."  By  a  re- 
markable administrative  ability  he  soon  put  his  native 
state  on  a  business  basis,  besides  garrisoning  its  im- 
portant points  and  gathering  at  his  own  elbow  3000 
drilled  men  and  the  cash  to  handle  them.  As  his 
strength  there  led  the  French  to  turn  more  tow- 
ards the  north,  Diaz  began  to  move  up,  until  Gen- 
eral Brincourt  and  a  large  force  were  sent  to  check 
him.  In  December,  1864,  the  largest  campaign  of  the 
Intervention  was  aimed  at  him;  and  early  in  1865 
these  vastly  superior  forces  shut  him  up  in  Oaxaca. 
The  self-made  Mexican  had  already  become  of  such 
consideration  that  Bazaine  took  the  field  against  him 
in  person ;  and  after  a  vain  attempt  to  bargain  (with 
equal  honors  in  the  imperial  army  as  an  inducement), 
pressed  the  siege  at  once  with  vigor  and  a  caution 
palpably  bent  on  avoiding  all  slips.  The  beleaguered 
tightened  their  hungry-belts  and  ran  the  church-bells 


X 

PI 


W 


>  .  l 


■ 


«*»> 


THE  LADDER  1 25 

into  cannon-balls.  At  the  beginning  of  the  end,  Diaz 
took  his  post  at  the  howitzer  in  a  church  tower,  and 
kept  it  hot  till  every  man  of  the  crew  but  one  beside 
him  was  slain,  and  his  officers  came  up  and  dragged 
him  away. 

After  three  weeks  of  hopeless  resistance,  Oaxaca 
capitulated.  All  the  captured  officers  except  three 
pledged  themselves  to  stand  neutral  the  rest  of  the 
war;  and  Diaz,  with  the  two  other  stiff-necks,  was 
dungeoned  in  Puebla.  After  tunnelling  almost  to 
freedom,  and  being  thwarted  in  several  other  at- 
tempts to  escape,  Porfirio  finally  dodged  the  turnkey, 
scaled  the  prison  wall,  and  got  away — with  a  reward 
of  $10,000  on  his  head. 

The  Mexican  cause  was  desperate.  The  French 
and  the  traitors  held  practically  all  the  country's 
area  and  resources.  The  stoic  Juarez,  almost  without 
armies  or  territory — only  the  petty  port  of  Guaymas, 
pocketed  on  the  Californian  Gulf,  and  the  desert  state 
of  Chihuahua  were  left  him — had  to  clap  his  hat  on  the 
government  and  betake  it  to  Saltillo,  to  Chihuahua, 
and  finally  to  Paso  del  Norte,  on  our  frontier.  Such 
deathless  courage  as  his  needed  only  a  hint  of  success 
to  make  it  contagious ;  but  he  was  not  of  that  un- 
translatable temper  which  the  Spanish  call  simpdtico, 
and  could  not  buoy  up  a  people.  The  hopes  of  Mexi- 
co were  at  zero. 

Diaz  understood  the  need  of  the  hour.  It  was  no 
time  to  lay  out  a  deliberate  campaign.  Swift,  sharp 
blows  that  should,  even  if  intrinsically  trivial,  electrify 
the  numbed  hopes  of  the  Nationalists — that  was  what 
was  called  for.  His  escape  from  Puebla  was  effected 
on  September  20,  and  on  the  22d,  with  a  hasty  handful 


126  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

of  men,  he  surprised  and  captured  the  garrison  of 
Tehuicingo.  Next  day  he  routed  another  Imperialist 
force,  and  acquired  arms  and  horses  with  which  to 
fight.  A  week  later  he  stole  a  march  on  the  superior 
force  of  Visoso,  who  had  come  after  him,  whin' 
and  got  its  cash -box.  By  littles  gathering  a.  ..  u.nd 
arms,  he  turned  again  on  the  pursuer,  led  him  out 
into  an  ambuscade,  and  smashed  his  forces.  The  end 
of  it  was  that  Visoso  came  over  bodily  to  his  brilliant 
adversary,  and  did  good  service  for  Mexico. 

These  minor  but  heart-warming  affairs  began  to 
work  like  yeast  among  the  despairing  patriots ;  and 
as  Diaz  loomed  larger  in  the  south,  the  fugitive  gov- 
ernment and  disjointed  nation  took  heart  of  hope. 
Dwindled  almost  to  the  consequence  of  guerilla 
warfare,  the  one-sided  struggle  went  on  with  new 
courage. 

As  the  gathering  climax  of  our  civil  war  made  clear 
the  inevitable  triumph  of  the  Federal  government,  the 
moral  pressure  of  the  United  States  began  to  be  felt 
seriously  by  the  arch-In,terventionist ;  while  unofficial 
help  of  men  and  money  commenced  to  leak  over  our 
border,  to  the  discomfiture  of  his  tools.  In  January, 
1866,  brought  to  his  tardy  senses  by  the  stiffness  of 
Seward,  Napoleon  rang  the  death-knell  of  the  Mexi- 
can Empire,  proclaiming  the  withdrawal  of  his  troops 
in  a  year.  Though  so  basely  deserted,  Maximilian 
had  still  the  forces  to  keep  him  for  some  time  master 
of  the  field,  while  his  plan  of  conciliation  bade  fair  to 
bring  him  by  a  better  road  to  success.  Juarez  could 
not  be  thought  of  as  a  compromise,  being  at  once  the 
head  of  the  opposition  and  none  too  strong  with  his 
countrymen.     Through  Bazaine  the   Presidency  was 


THE   MILITARY    COLLEGE,   CHAPULTEPEC 


THE  LADDER  1 27 

proffered  to  Diaz ;  but  the  gentleman  later  of  Metz 
was  dealing  with  a  stranger.  The  Mexican  did  not 
even  reply. 

Seeing  the  French  occupied  in  the  north,  Diaz  be- 
gan in  the  spring  of  1866  to  advance  his  fences,  and 
won  several  minor  engagements.  After  one  of  these, 
the  baffled  Imperialist  Trujeque  invited  him  to  a  par- 
ley, and  when  Diaz  arrived  in  the  enemy's  camp  he 
was  fired  on  by  men  concealed  in  an  adjacent  build- 
ing, but  wheeled  his  horse  like  a  flash  and  escaped. 

In  face  of  an  enemy  superior  in  numbers,  disci- 
pline, and  equipment,  Diaz  whetted  his  tactics.  Sec- 
onded by  his  dashing  brother  Felix,  he  toled  the  ene- 
my up  and  down  the  familiar  hills  of  his  boyhood, 
tired  and  tantalized  and  disgusted  them  —  and  in 
the  hour  of  their  weariness  fell  upon  them  like  a 
cloud-burst.  He  juggled  his  small  force  with  con- 
summate dexterity,  winning  action  after  action  by 
the  precise  diplomacy  of  a  New  Mexican  acquaintance 
of  mine  who  sold  "  half  "  his  cattle  in  the  morning  on 
the  east  side  of  the  mountain,  and  drove  them  around 
to  the  west  side  and  sold  "  the  rest  "  in  the  afternoon. 
Diaz  dragged  brush  behind  his  troopers,  to  kick  up 
the  dust  of  a  conquering  host  ;  popped  up  a  handful 
of  cavalry  first  on  one  hill  and  then  on  another — and 
conquered  the  bedeviled  enemy  almost  as  much  by 
his  ingenuity  as  by  his  desperate  in-fighting.  Of  this 
picturesque  campaign  the  famous  battles  of  Miahuat- 
lan  and  La  Carbonera  were  most  important.  Oronoz, 
with  a  larger  force  and  far  better  armed,  doubled  and 
surprised  him  through  the  carelessness  of  a  captain. 
Diaz  and  thirty  men  stood  off  the  attack  till  his  cav- 
alry could    resaddle    and    his    infantry   fall    in.     He 


128  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

fought  stubbornly  until  he  saw  his  powder  giving  out, 
and  then  carried  his  little  force  in  a  mad  charge  upon 
Oronoz's  centre,  took  the  battery,  turned  it  on  the 
Imperialists,  and  though  overwhelmed  with  numbers 
stood  to  the  guns  till  his  little  reserve  came  and 
turned  the  field  to  a  rout,  capturing  forty  officers,  the 
baggage-train,  and  the  all-important  arms.  He  drove 
Oronoz  into  a  fortified  position,  intercepted  the  Aus- 
trian reinforcements,  and  after  withstanding  four 
charges,  turned  them,  and  took  their  cannon,  am- 
munition, and  several  hundred  carbines.  Marching 
straight  on  Oaxaca,  he  took  his  native  city  from  the 
invaders  after  a  sharp  siege.  It  was  prophetic  of  the 
man  that  in  this  time  of  stress  he  founded  the  Oaxaca 
model  school  for  girls — the  forecast  of  that  system 
which  is  working  the  greatest  social  change  in  Mexi- 
can history. 

When  the  over-persuaded  Emperor  —  already  in 
motion  to  sail  for  Europe — returned  to  the  capital  to 
"  stick  it  out,"  and  took  the  field  in  person,  the  re- 
publican armies  focused  on  the  north,  and  the  dis- 
tant Oaxacan  was  left  to  work  out  his  own  salvation. 
Again  Maximilian  attempted  to  bargain  with  him — 
now  for  a  free  exit  for  the  French  arms.  But  Diaz 
quietly  referred  him  to  the  wandering  President. 

Thrown  entirely  on  his  own  resources  for  men, 
money,  and  arms — and  even  at  times  bled  of  his  lev- 
ies by  the  worried  government — Diaz  merely  went  at 
it  the  harder.  Known  for  scrupulousness,  he  secured 
voluntary  loans  where  forced  loans  had  been  hopeless. 
Gathering  up  what  men  and  material  he  could,  he  be- 
sieged Puebla,  with  six  field -pieces  against  her  hun- 
dred.    It  was  his  third  turn  at  Puebla,  twice  as  be- 


THE  LADDER  1 29 

sieged,  now  as  besieger.  In  the  three  weeks  of  the 
investment  he  was  everywhere,  and  survived  not  only 
the  usual  perils  of  the  assault,  but  was  dug  out  whole 
from  under  the  ruins  of  an  adobe  wall. 

Learning  that  an  army  as  large  as  his  own  was  on 
its  way  to  reinforce  the  besieged,  he  ordered  all  the 
preparations  for  withdrawing.  Not  only  the  enemy, 
but  his  own  officers  took  him  to  be  headed  for  Mexi- 
co, and  both  approved  his  wisdom  under  the  circum- 
stances. But  though  the  Spanish  calendar  has  no 
special  associations  with  April  1,  the  date  was  a  pro- 
pos.  That  night  his  army  kept  their  teeth  on  surpris- 
ing news.  Before  dawn  of  April  2  (1867)  Diaz  made 
a  feint  on  the  south  of  the  city,  and  followed  with  a 
desperate  assault  all  along  the  line.  He  took  it  point 
by  point,  by  hand ;  and  at  daylight  had  scored  his 
greatest  battle  and  redeemed  Puebla. 

Amid  the  reprisals  of  these  embittered  struggles  Diaz 
had  achieved  an  honorable  distinction  for  humanity 
to  his  prisoners ;  and  this  became  no  small  factor  in 
his  successes.  Here  at  Puebla  he  pardoned  the  capt- 
ured officers,  who  fully  expected  a  fusillade,  and  among 
them  the  officious  fellow  who  had  added  $1000  from 
his  own  pocket  to  the  price  set  on  Porfirio's  head 
after  his  escape  from  this  same  city. 

Marching  up  from  his  great  victory,  the  hero  of 
Puebla  met  the  enemy's  reinforcements  and  ran  them 
back  to  Mexico  in  "The  Five  Days'  Battle."  Shut- 
ting up  Marquez  in  the  capital,  but  unwilling  to  bom- 
bard that  splendid  city,  Diaz  put  on  the  thumb-screws 
with  patient  deliberation.  Escobedo  finally  overcame 
the  far  inferior  force  with  which  Maximilian  had  held 
out  so  long  against  him  in  Queretaro.  June  19  (1867) 
9 


130  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A   NATION 

the  ill-fated  Emperor  and  his  two  stanch  generals 
were  executed,  and  next  day  Mexico  surrendered 
to  Diaz.  People  noted  that  the  victorious  general 
came  in  unostentatiously,  and  fell  to  setting  things  in 
order,  but  that  he  was  ready  with  a  splendid  demon- 
stration when  the  long -exiled  President  returned, 
July  15.  His  task  done,  Diaz  resigned,  and  after 
serving  for  a  few  months,  by  request,  in  a  reor- 
ganization of  the  army,  he  retired  quietly  to  private 
life. 

His  native  city  met  him  with  open  arms;  and  be- 
sides the  highest  civic  honors  gave  him  in  fee  simple 
the  estate  of  La  Noria.  Here  for  a  couple  of  years 
Diaz  lived  as  a  peaceful  manufacturer  of  cane  sugar 
and  a  man  of  family,  having  been  married  by  proxy, 
on  the  day  of  his  victory  at  Puebla,  to  Delfina  Ortega 
y  Reyes. 

The  Presidential  campaign  of  1867  was  marked  by 
new  convulsions  in  Mexico.  The  Progresistas  made 
Diaz  their  standard  -  bearer,  but  with  the  machine  at 
his  back  Juarez  was  declared  re-elected,  and  Diaz  re- 
fused to  contest.  In  1871  the  Indian  President, 
who  had  held  office  since  1857,  was  again  nominally 
elected.  In  behalf  of  the  reforms  promised  under 
the  Constitution  of  1857,  but  never  instituted,  Diaz 
issued  from  Oaxaca  the  protest  known  as  the  "  Pro- 
nunciamiento  of  La  Noria.''  * 

Juarez  was  already  a  changed  man  by  failing  health 
and  growing  blindness  to  the  needs  of  the  nation. 
July  18,  1872,  death  ended  this  strange,  mute,  stub- 
born, circumscribed,  but  great  career.     Lerdo  de  Te- 

*  Dated  November  8, 1871. 


Q    I 


2       W 


THE  LADDER  131 

jada,  in  whom  under  Mexican  laws  rested  the  right  of 
succession,  was  elected  President  in  October.  He 
offered  Diaz  high  positions,  but  the  Oaxacan  went 
back  to  his  sugar-making. 

In  1874  the  incumbent,  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman, 
but  neither  a  large  ruler  nor  a  large  patriot,  had  the 
country  by  the  ears,  partly  by  mismanagement,  partly 
by  showing  his  design  to  capture  a  second  term. 
Revolutions  broke  out  all  over  the  republic,  and  the 
famous  "Plan  of  Tuxtepec"  was  promulgated  January 
16,  1876.  Among  the  prominent  Mexicans  proscribed 
by  Lerdo  was  his  most  dangerous  rival ;  and  selling 
off  his  property  for  a  song,  Diaz  retired  to  the  United 
States.  In  March,  1876,  he  crossed  the  Rio  Grande 
from  Brownsville,  Texas,  with  forty  men,  and  issued 
a  pronunciamiento.  His  forty  soon  multiplied  by  ten, 
and  marching  on  the  Lerdist  garrison  of  Matamoras, 
he  captured  seven  hundred  prisoners  and  eighteen 
cannon ;  next  beating  the  larger  force  of  Fuero  at 
Icamole.  But  rinding  it  impossible  to  break  through 
to  the  distant  south,  he  returned  to  New  Orleans  and 
sailed  in  disguise  for  Vera  Cruz.  At  Tampico  a  lot 
of  his  Matamoras  prisoners  came  aboard  the  steamer, 
and  he  was  recognized.  Slipping  overboard  by  night 
in  the  shark -infested  harbor,  he  started  to  swim 
ashore,  but  was  overhauled  and  carried  back.  It  was 
perhaps  the  most  ticklish  of  all  his  personal  hazards,, 
many  and  great  as  they  have  been.  But  the  purser 
took  a  hand,  and  deceived  the  captain  by  throwing 
overboard  a  life-preserver.  Diaz  lay  for  a  week 
cooped  inside  the  sofa  on  which  the  Lerdist  officers 
sat  for  their  nightly  card  games.  At  Vera  Cruz 
he  got  ashore  disguised  as  a  sailor,  and  after  many 


132  THE   AWAKENING  OF   A   NATION 

startling  adventures  came  back  to  Oaxaca,  where  he 
rallied  a  force  of  4000  men. 

After  the  alleged  re-election  of  Lerdo,  against  which 
even  the  president  of  the  Supreme  Court  rose  in  re- 
volt, General  Alatorre  was  sent  to  run  down  Diaz. 
At  Tecoac  he  caught  him.  The  battle  was  long  and 
sharp,  but  though  outnumbered,  Diaz  won.  He  held 
his  men  in  hand  till  the  crisis,  and  then,  leading  the 
charge  in  person,  broke  Alatorre's  army  in  two,  and 
captured  its  artillery,  baggage,  and  3000  prisoners. 
From  the  field  of  Tecoac  he  marched  on  Mexico. 
Lerdo  fled  via  Acapulco  to  the  United  States,  "  tak- 
ing the  cash,"  and  on  the  23d  of  November  Diaz  en- 
tered the  capital  amid  general  rejoicing.  Five  days 
later  he  assumed  the  provisional  Presidency,  and  in 
April,  1877,  was  elected  constitutional  President  of  the 
republic.  Lerdo  promoted  several  uprisings,  which 
were  easily  put  down,  and  Iglesias,  the  Supreme  Court 
claimant,  returned  from  his  hiding  to  private  life. 

This  coup  made  the  beginnings  of  Mexico  as  a 
prosperous  and  modern  nation.  For  the  first  time  in 
her  history  since  the  revolt  from  viceregal  rule  she 
had  at  the  reins  a  hand  strong  enough  and  a  head 
clear  enough.  Peace  rose  upon  the  wrack  of  fifty 
years  of  chaos,  and  progress  followed  after  peace- 
Best  of  all,  a  national  spirit  began  to  be  welded 
among  the  factions.  When  the  question  who  could 
and  should  and  would  rule  Mexico  was  taken  out  of 
the  scramble,  the  lookers  for  Presidential  lightning  be- 
gan to  fall  into  line  for  more  important  things ;  while 
those  blind  enough  still  to  fancy  that  the  new  man 
was  just  a  man,  and  not  the  government  of  Mexico, 
found  out  their  mistake. 


THE    LADDER  1 33 

There  was  singular  businesslikeness  in  every  step, 
and  at  the  same  time  singular  justice.  Diaz  knew  a 
good  man  in  friend  or  foe.  When  he  could,  he  called 
to  his  side,  and  as  readily,  those  who  had  been  his 
chief  enemies  as  his  first  friends.  Those  who  would 
not  lend  a  hand  he  merely  kept  where  he  could  have 
an  eye  on  them.  All  a  revoluciondrio  had  to  do  to  be 
persona  grata  was  to  turn  his  talents  to  the  uplifting 
of  Mexico ;  and  this  policy  did  wonders. 

The  internal  policy  which  has  in  so  few  years  won 
statesmen  from  contemptuous  indifference  to  admi- 
ration began  at  once.  Before  one  realized  it,  Diaz 
was  binding  his  disjointed  states  by  the  railroad  and 
the  telegraph.  In  his  first  year  the  long  arrears  of 
public  officials  had  been  paid  up.  In  five  years  he 
had  more  than  doubled  the  national  revenues,  and  not 
by  exactions,  but  by  putting  the  public  business  on 
a  civil  -  service  basis.  Roads,  bridges,  light -houses, 
wharves,  public  buildings,  began  to  rise  as  taxes  went 
down.  The  military  and  civil  codes  were  revised. 
The  army  was  reorganized,  and  the  best  country  po- 
lice in  the  world,  the  gudrdias  rurales,  were  created. 
By  them  the  curse  of  brigandage,  which  infested  every 
trail  and  highway  in  Mexico,  has  been  wiped  out. 
Reformed  diplomatic  relations  were  established  with 
the  outer  world.  The  national  credit  was  raised  from 
the  dead.  And  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  long -wasted  country  the  public  school  began  to 
rise.  Primary  instruction,  normal  schools,  agricultural 
and  industrial  training,  fairs,  factories,  and  the  devel- 
opment of  the  soil — by  all  such  steps  united  Mexico 
began  suddenly  to  come  up  out  of  her  low  estate. 

It  was  some  time  before  she  met  much  welcome  ; 


134  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

and  the  cool  stand  of  Diaz  in  marking  a  dead-line 
along  the  frontier,  and  advising  our  General  Ord  that 
it  must  not  be  overstepped  in  pursuit  of  Indians  or 
other  things,  had  like  to  have  made  trouble.  But  a 
year  after  his  election  to  the  Presidency  Diaz  was 
officially  recognized  by  our  government,  and  Grant's 
visit  to  Mexico  in  1880  did  much  to  civilize  our  feel- 
ings towards  the  neighbor  republic. 

Then  came  the  interregnum  of  Manuel  Gonzalez, 
"  El  Mocho  " — a  man  of  superb  courage  and  of  his 
word,  but  little  other  morals — who  brought  progress  to 
a  standstill.  In  1880  Diaz  lost  his  wife  and  her  babe 
— the  heaviest  blow  that  has  ever  reached  him  amid  all 
his  perils.  He  was  for  a  time  Secretary  of  Fomento 
under  Gonzalez,  Senator  from  Morelos,  and  Governor 
of  Oaxaca — elected  to  the  last  office  by  a  literally 
unanimous  vote.  In  the  spring  of  1883  ne  married 
his  present  wife,  and  their  wedding -trip  was  to  the 
United  States. 

Without  activity  on  his  part,  and  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority,  he  was  re-elected  President  to  succeed 
Gonzalez,  and  was  inaugurated  December  1,  1884, 
with  severe  simplicity.  Last  year  he  took  the  oath 
which  inaugurates  his  present  (fifth)  term,  which  has 
every  promise  of  being  his  most  successful  one.  The 
perfection  of  his  remarkable  system  of  public  educa- 
tion, and  of  his  hardly  less  masterly  scheme  of  rail- 
road and  harbor  development,  is  the  ambition  of  this 
term,  which  is  to  be  his  last. 

And  to  the  question  first  on  our  lips — "  But  when 
Diaz  dies  or  has  done?" — he  has,  I  think,  provided 
the  answer.  He  has  set  the  feet  of  his  people  in 
the  paths  of  progress.     He  has  given  them  to  know, 


THE    LADDER  1 35 

after  fever,  how  good  is  the  cool  draught  of  peace. 
He  has  bound  them  not  more  to  himself  than  to  one 
another.  And  when  he  steps  down  from  his  romantic 
place  he  will  leave  a  people  apprenticed  to  self-gov- 
ernment— a  people  not  past  mistakes,  but  unlikely  to 
forget  the  main  lesson, with  an  abundance  of  able  men 
fit  to  be  called  to  the  head,  and  willing  to  wait  to  be 
called. 

Yet  by  the  very  nature  of  things  just  such  a  career 
can  befall  but  once  in  a  country's  life.  Such  men 
may  return,  but  not  again  such  opportunity.  And 
among  those  who  have  gone  before  and  those  who 
shall  come  after  him,  history  will  reserve  an  undis- 
puted place  for  the  man  who  made  the  United  States 
of  Mexico ;  the  second  American  who  has  won  and 
worn  the  title,  "  First  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first 
in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen." 

At  last  at  peace  with  herself,  Mexico  is  at  peace 
with  all  the  world — even  with  the  two  nations  against 
whom  were  her  only  native  grudges.  She  has  ceased 
to  hate  Spain,  thanks  to  chivalrous  General  Prim,  who 
even  in  war  kept  faith — and  the  French,  who  broke  it. 
She  even  forgives  us  our  consuls,  and  the  tourist 
whose  hat  persists  in  the  cathedral.  There  is  not 
even  bitterness  in  her  memories  of  the  miserable  war 
of  '48.  For  she  remembers  that  Seward's  Monroe 
doctrine  ended  the  Intervention  by  convincing  the  lit- 
tle Napoleon  that  empires  were  not  a  good  invest- 
ment next  door  to  Uncle  Sam.  Remembering  that, 
she  can  forget  a  good  deal. 


XII 

SOME  OUTER  ACTIVITIES 

If  I  have  given  disproportionate  space  to  the  City 
of  Mexico,  it  is  simply  because  it  is  easier  to  handle  in 
this  narrow  elbow-room  a  fair  type  of  modern  Mex- 
ico than  to  go  knight's-jumping  over  the  country  in 
pursuit  of  disjointed  illustrations.  The  capital  fails 
to  be  typical  only  in  that  it  is  by  more  than  thrice 
the  largest  population  in  the  republic,  and  that  by  its 
sheer  momentum  of  numbers  (as  well  as  by  its  accessi- 
bility to  the  central  government)  it  takes  a  rather 
more  impressive  stride  of  progress.  It  is  typical  in 
that  every  other  city  in  the  country  is  progressing 
along  precisely  the  same  lines  and  for  precisely  the 
same  reasons.  The  difference  is  of  degree,  and  not 
of  kind. 

Beautiful  Puebla*  and  lovely  Guadalajaraf  dispute 
the  second  place,  each  with  about  100,000  people. 
"  Puebla  the  clean"  is  probably  entitled  to  it,  and,  at 

*  Founded  as  La  Puebla  de  los  Angeles ;  since  the  Inde- 
pendence, Puebla  de  Zaragosa.  The  first  mass  was  said  here 
April  16,  1530.     Privileged  as  a  city  September  28,  1531. 

t  Founded  by  Nufio  de  Guzman  in  1531.  He  was  one  of 
the  few  conquistadores  who  were  our  stage  Spaniards — a  cruel 
brute,  who  was  duly  punished  for  his  atrocities,  as  were  all  the 
atrocious  ones. 


1  B| 


hi 


SOME   OUTER  ACTIVITIES  1 37 

any  rate,  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  towns  in  the 
New  World.  Fray  Velarde  wrote  of  it,  nearly  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  ago :  "  To  me  it  appeared  so  abun- 
dant and  so  fair  that  it  is  not  inferior  to  the  best , 
cities  of  Europe.  It  is,  without  competition,  the  best 
and  most  principal  city  of  North  America  after  Mexi- 
co." He  found  there  five  hospitals  and  sundry  col- 
leges, of  which  one  had  over  five  hundred  young  In- 
dian scholars.  Of  the  College  of  the  Holy  Ghost  he 
says,  "I  doubt  if  there  be  another  like  it  in  America." 
This  is  to-day  the  fine  State  College  —  the  historic 
building,  by-the-way,  from  which  Diaz  (taken  prisoner 
by  the  French)  made  so  dashing  an  escape  in  1865. 
A  good  gymnasium  is  among  its  arrangements. 

The  city  bristles  with  interesting  churches  (they 
pass  forty) ;  and  its  vast,  severe  cathedral*  is  famous 
even  in  Mexico.  The  ex- convent  of  Santa  Rosa  is 
particularly  rich  in  the  encaustic  tiles  in  whose  mak- 
ing Puebla  led  the  New  World. 

Puebla  is  still,  as  it  has  been  for  centuries,  one  of 
the  foremost   manufacturing  points  of   Mexico ;  but 

*  In  one  of  its  towers  is  the  phonetic  inscription : 

Reynando  D.  Carlos  II. 
Nro.  Senor.  El  Maestro 

Mayor,  Carlos  Garcia 
Durango,  Que  enpeso  la 
Fabryca  de  esta  Tore  y 

La  ac abo.  Ano  de  1678. 

Y  no  Sucedio  Desgracya 

Costo.  Syen  Mil  Pesos. 

[In  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  the  Master-Builder  Carlos  Garcia 
Durango  began  the  construction  of  this  tower,  and  finished  it 
in  the  year  1678.    And  no  accident  befell.     It  cost  $100,000.] 


138  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

now  great  modern  mills  are  taking  the  place  of  fire- 
side industries  and  colonial  obrajes.  In  1802  the  city 
made  five  million  pounds  of  soap.  Even  ten  years 
earlier  it  had  forty-six  earthenware  factories.  At  the 
beginning  of  this  century  it  counted  over  one  thou- 
sand two  hundred  weavers  of  cotton  and  cottonades. 
It  manufactured  hats  for  Mexico  and  Peru.  It  also 
tanned  over  eighty  thousand  cowhides  a  year.  Herds, 
by-the-way,  were  not  slow  to  root  and  branch  in  the 
New  World.  Fray  Jose  de  Acosta,  whose  Histdria 
Natural  y  Moral  de  las  Indias  is  so  flavorsome  read- 
ing, notes  the  arrival  in  Seville,  as  early  as  1587,  of  a 
fiota  bringing  64,340  Mexican  rawhides — indicating  a 
fair  increase  for  about  half  a  century  since  the  first 
introduction  of  cattle  to  the  New  World. 

Now  the  city  has  fifteen  modern  cotton -mills,  a 
glass  factory,  five  or  six  flour-mills,  and  considerable 
industries  in  pottery  and  tiles,  and  onyx  and  the  like. 
The  great  manufacturer,  Rubin,  has  put  over  a  thou- 
sand tons  of  the  latest  machinery  into  his  new  million- 
dollar  cotton-mill,  La  Moratilla  ;  and  another  two  hun- 
dred-loom mill  near  San  Martin  is  but  a  year  old.  A 
two-hundred  thousand-dollar  mill,  as  new,  faces  the  rail- 
road station.  A  modern  flour-mill,  to  do  a  business  of 
over  $200,000  a  year,  is  another  wrinkle  of  modernity. 

The  city's  factories  have  not  begrimed  its  wonder- 
ful skies  nor  debased  its  architecture.  The  stone  cor- 
nices of  Puebla,  and  the  stone  brackets,  which  replace 
pillars  as  supports  of  its  balconies,  are  unique.  To 
the  historian  this  town  of  eleven  sieges,  this  promi- 
nent point  in  colonial  times,*  and  chief  focus  of  the 

*  It  was  the  only  reasonable  city  on  the  highway  from,the 
coast  to  the  capital. 


POPOCATEPETL,  THE    SMOKING   MOUNTAIN    (17,800   FEET    HIGH)    FROM 
THE    SACROMONTE 


SOME    OUTER  ACTIVITIES  1 39 

War  of  Intervention,  is  precious.  The  ravine-gouged 
hill  of  Guadalupe  has  been  the  largest  battle-ground 
in  Mexican  history,  and  on  it  Diaz  won  distinction  in 
three  battles  against  the  invader.  The  splendid  state- 
prison  (five  years  old  and  costing  $100,000),  the  new 
alamedas  and  statues,  the  huge  Parian  (market),  the 
improvements  in  the  electric  lighting  and  water-sup- 
ply, the  beginnings  of  sewerage,  and  the  remodelling 
of  the  schools  (which  a  year  ago  adopted  the  German 
system)  are  typical  of  Puebla's  progress.  So  it  is  that 
the  state  paid  off,  on  the  national  birthday  (September 
16,  1896),  the  last  instalment  of  its  debt. 

It  is  one  of  the  garden  spots  of  all  the  Mexican  up- 
lands, this  Puebla  basin,  staked  at  the  corners  by 
Popoca-tepetl,  Yztaccihuatl,  and  the  Malinche.  The 
average  altitude  of  the  plain  is  about  seven  thousand 
feet ;  and  though  scantily  watered,  its  broad  leagues 
are  rich  with  maguey,  corn,  wheat,  barley,  beans,  chile, 
and  potatoes.  That  it  was  a  favorite  location  of  the 
first  colonists  is  well  known.  When  Fray  Toribio  de 
Paredes  (the  historian  Motolinia)  blessed  the  six- 
months'-old  town  of  Puebla,  its  huts,  and  church-site, 
April  16,  1532,  there  were  thirty-three  citizens.  In 
1678  it  had  a  population  of  80,000 ;  and  as  late  as  1800 
it  was  by  size  the  fourth  city  in  Spanish  America. 
Since  its  early  "  boom  " — probably  the  most  remark- 
able of  those  centuries — it  has  had  its  ups-and-downs  ; 
but  nowadays  it  is  marching  forward  surely  and  not 
slowly. 

On  the  other  hand,  Cholula,  half  an  hour  down  the 
plain  from  this  parvenu  metropolis  of  only  360  years, 
has  swallowed  so  long  a  dose  of  civilization  with  hard- 
ly the  tremor  of  an  eyelid.     To  this  day  it  is  Indian 


140  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

as  Indian,  for  all  the  latter  landmarks.  At  the  Con- 
quest it  was  one  of  the  largest  pueblos  in  the  country 
— about  as  large  as  Mexico  itself — and  among  its  low, 
flat  houses  towered  the  huge  pyramids.  Now  it  has 
but  about  6000  people,  with  twenty-six  churches,  in- 
cluding enormous  San  Francisco  and  its  crumbled 
capilla  real,  whose  dome  is  upheld  by  sixty- four  col- 
umns. Even  upon  the  summit  of  its  great  pyramid 
stands  the  graceful  church  of  Our  Lady  de  los  Reme"- 
dios ;  while  a  railroad  has  bitten  deep  into  the  base. 
This  huge  artificial  mound,  with  a  base  now  of  about 
twenty  acres,  but  formerly  of  sixty,  and  a  present 
height  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  feet  (formerly  over 
two  hundred)  is  one  of  the  largest  and  one  of  the  most 
ancient  works  of  man  in  this  old  "  New  World,"  and, 
while  it  lacks  the  glamour  of  the  "  palaces  "  of  Pa- 
lenque  and  Papantla  and  Tiahuanaco,  is  among  the 
most  interesting.  It  antedates  even  the  Nahuatl  occu- 
pation, and  was  probably  built  by  the  Mayas,  or  the 
"  Toltecs,"  those  handy  inventions  of  Ixtlilxochitl 
and  Torquemada.  Here  was  the  famous  so  -  called 
"  Massacre  of  Cholula,"  when  Cortez  found  himself 
toled  into  the  trap — and  struck  first.  Bandelier  first 
gave  this  much-abused  affair  its  due  proportion  in  his- 
tory and  in  morals.  ' 
Puebla  was  purposely  built  across  the  river  from  the 
tribal  range  of  Cholula,  and  on  vacant  ground,  "  so  as 
not  to  work  injury  to  any  Indians."  The  selection  of 
a  site  which  then  cannot  have  looked  quite  so  at- 
tractive as  the  well- cultivated  plain  of  Cholula,  has 
been  fully  approved  by  time.  Puebla  is  ideally  situ- 
ated. A  city  ought  to  thrive  in  such  a  setting — with 
the  Atoyac  to  turn  its  mills,  that  climate  to  fill  its 


SOME    OUTER  ACTIVITIES  141 

lungs,  and  for  education  of  its  eyes  the  two  finest 
snow-peaks  of  North  America  beetling  upon  the  west- 
ern sky. 

Still,  I  care  more  for  the  Popoca-tepetl  and  the 
Yztaccihuatl  from  the  other  side — even  so  fair  a  valley 
as  that  of  Puebla  is  not  the  fittest  frame  for  a  moun- 
tain view.  From  the  Sacromonte  —  whose  gigantic 
cypresses,  garlanded  with  Spanish  moss,  lead  up  to  the 
cave-shrine  of  the  most  famous  statue  in  Mexico* — is 
to  me  the  most  characteristic  view  of  the  Smoke 
Mountain,  with  head  and  shoulders  above  the  summer 
clouds,  and  of  the  Woman  in  White  stretched  upon 
her  lofty  bier.  Indeed,  from  just  the  right  point  of 
vantage,  here  is  probably  the  noblest  prospect  in  all 
North  America.  Below  the  shaggy  hill  by  350  feet — 
and  against  its  abrupt  toes — are  the  white  buildings  of 
Amecameca.  Close  beyond  them  begin  the  rapid  but- 
tresses of  the  range ;  and  above  all  impend  the  Titan 
pair.  Popoca-tepetl  (17,800  feet)  is  mightier  and  more 
burly  than  from  the  other  side,  and  as  for  Yztac- 
cihuatl (15,700  feet),  her  characteristic  shape  (here 
wonderfully  like  a  woman's  form  covered  with  a  white 
pall  and  stretched  upon  an  altar)  is  wholly  lost  from 
the  Puebla  side,  where  she  was  known  simply  as 
Yztac-tepetl,  the  White  Mountain.  She  is  older,  and 
has  been  far  greater,  than  her  royal  lover  ;f  but  now 
her  crater  has  so  much  disappeared  that  careless  trav- 
ellers miss  her  volcanic  character  ;  and  from  the  waste 
of  her  stupendous  frame  are  born  the  smiling  valleys 

*  Our  Lord  of  the  Sacromonte,  brought  from  Spain  in  1527. 
Enormous  pilgrimages  are  made  to  it  yearly ;  but  it  was  never 
before  photographed. 

t  For  so,  by  the  Aztec  myth,  was  Popoca-tepetl. 


142  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

of  Puebla.  Popoca-tepetl,  which  has  been  numerously 
ascended  ever  since  Diego  de  Ordaz  (15 19),*  has  a 
crater  half  a  mile  in  diameter,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  famous  of  sulphur  mines.  The  volcano  is  alive, 
but  inactive ;  but  has  not  always  been  so  tame  within 
historic  times.  At  the  Conquest  Cortez  and  others  re- 
cord that  it  was  in  eruption,  throwing  out  rocks, 
smoke,  and  terrible  noises.  An  outburst  in  1540  car- 
ried cinders  as  far  as  Puebla  and  Tlaxcala,  and  another 
in  1663  darkened  the  sky  with  its  ashes.  The  last 
eruption  was  on  the  day  of  San  Sebastian,  1664,  when 
the  eastern  rim  of  the  crater  fell  in,  to  the  terror  of  all 
the  country-side,  and  ashes  fell  again  in  Puebla,  ten 
leagues  away. 

Down  from  Puebla  by  the  Mexican  Southern,  past 
the  hamlet  of  Amozoc  (famous  by  centuries  for  the 
expert  smiths  who  waxed  fat  shoeing  the  pack-beasts 
that  toiled  up  from  Vera  Cruz),  one  drops  fast  from 
the  7000-foot  corn-lands  to  successive  palms,  bananas, 
and  sugar-cane.  It  is  another  of  those  swift  Mexican 
ladders  from  the  high  temperate  zone  to  the  tropics, 
and  is  interesting  for  memorable  scenery  as  well  as  for 
the  shifting  panorama  of  climates.  At  Qui6tepec  we 
are  less  than  1800  feet  above  the  sea. 

I  cannot  pretend  to  describe  this  dip  into  the  rich 
south,  nor  Oaxaca.f  capital  of  its  state  and  mother  of 

*  Cortez  discredits  this  achievement.  It  is  perfectly  certain, 
however,  that  in  1522  a  gallant  soldier  named  Francisco  Mon- 
tana was  "  lowered  seventy  or  eighty  fathoms,  face  down,"  and 
gathered  sulphur  for  gunpowder  to  complete  the  Conquest. 

t  It  was  this  rich  southern  valley  (the  old  "Huaxyacac" 
which  he  sent  Juan  Nunez  de  Mercado  to  subdue  in  1522)  that 


' 


SOME    OUTER  ACTIVITIES  143 

presidents — the  low -built,  massy  city  of  the  earth- 
quake lands,  with  its  pretty  plazas  and  haciendas,  its 
Oriental  ox- carts,  its  gaslights  and  Arabic  lanterns 
swung  across  the  street,  its  baths  trimmed  with  onyx, 
its  fine  public  buildings,  its  museum,  library,  seminary, 
and  normal  schools.  It  is  still  one  of  the  most  Mexi- 
can of  cities,  and  one  of  the  most  attractive,  with  a 
climate  hardly  surpassed. 

It  is  gateway  to  a  vast  region  just  awakening  for 
development,  and  to  a  great  field  of  the  first  archaeo- 
logic  importance.  A  half -day's  gallop  away  are  the 
most  surprising  ruins  north  of  Yucatan,  the  immemo- 
rial so-called  "mosaic  palaces"  of  Mitla;  and  other 
pre-historic  remains  are  in  all  directions.  And  on  to 
the  south  open  the  wonders  of  the  half-unguessed 
tierra  caliente. 

But  time  fails  me  for  longer  rambling  by  these 
pleasant  lanes  north  or  south.  It  is  too  late  to  tarry 
in  Guadalajara,  which  was  already  "  Pearl  of  the 
West "  before  it  was  half  so  livable  and  lovable  as 
now.  It  has  not  turned  from  the  left-hand  bank  of 
the  Santiago,  nor  forgotten  its  ancient  and  excelling 
potteries,  its  cathedral  from  1548,  its  venerable  wool 

gave  Cortez  his  marquesate  Del  Valle,  granted  July,  1529.  The 
diocese  of  Oaxaca  (one  of  the  four  first  in  Mexico)  was  estab- 
lished in  1534.  The  city  has  suffered  various  earthquakes  (no- 
tably in  1772,  1787,  and  1817)  and  many  storm ings — by  More- 
los,  Santa  Anna,  and  Guerrero,  not  to  mention  Diaz  himself 
and  Field-marshal  Bazaine  in  later  wars.  The  town  was  found- 
ed by  royal  cedula  of  April  25, 1532.  Fourteen  years  later  it  had 
but  thirty  Spaniards.  Its  present  population  is  about  30,000. 
Its  altitude  is  3900  feet. 


144  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

and  cotton  mills  from  1765  (before  that  it  depended 
for  these  fabrics  on  the  older  mills  of  Puebla,  Quere- 
taro,  and  San  Miguel  Grande).  But  on  their  head  it 
has  new  beauties,  new  hygiene,  and  new  conveniences. 
It  is  now  lighted  by  electricity — the  power  transmitted 
from  the  great  falls  of  Juanacatlan,  fifteen  miles  away — 
and  about  it,  now  that  a  branch  of  the  Mexican  Cen- 
tral brings  it  up  to  date,  are  springing  up  some  of  the 
finest  factories  in  America. 

Pachuca  (State  of  Hidalgo),  the  oldest  mining  camp 
in  Mexico,  is  also  one  of  the  newest.  I  wonder  what 
the  Count  of  Regla  would  feel  if  he  might  return  and 
visit  the  plant  of  the  Regla  Electric  Power  Transmission 
Company,  a  native  company  organized  in  1894  with  a 
capital  of  $800,000.  From  a  fall  of  90  feet  it  develops 
600  horse-power,  and  transmits  it  ten  kilometres.  The 
mines  of  Pachuca  suffer  $250,000  a  month  by  flooding 
— and  by  the  jealousies  which  have  kept  them  from 
pulling  together  to  remedy  the  case ;  but  this  cannot 
last  long,  and  the  electric  company  is  to  be  their  sav- 
iour. Here  were  the  famous  mines  of  the  Real  del 
Monte,  which  probably  enjoy  the  distinction  of  being 
the  most  colossal  folly  of  English  "  tenderfeet,"  but 
paid  as  soon  as  they  reverted  to  Mexican  manage- 
ment. Here  were  the  famous  vetas  of  La  Viscaina, 
El  Rosdrio,  La  Soledad,  Cabrera,  and  Moran.  Here  the 
Conde  de  Regla  "  made  his  pile."  It  was  from  these 
tiros  that  he  promised  to  pave  the  road  from  Vera 
Cruz  to  Mexico  (550  kilometres)  with  silver  ingots  if 
the  monarch  would  accept  his  invitation  to  visit  the 
New  World.  Two  of  these  mines  in  1726-27  pro- 
duced 4,341,600  ounces  of  silver.  Here  were  two  of 
the  most  disastrous  shaft  fires  in  early  America ;  and 


A    BIT    OF    OLD    MEXICO — THE    RUIN'S    OF    MITLA 


SOME  OUTER   ACTIVITIES  145 

here  one  of  the  first  and  greatest  tunnels  to  drain  a 
mine  was  finished  in  1762. 

And  there  are  Toluca — most  often  named  in  Mexi- 
co for  its  superior  brewery,  but  notable  on  many  other 
planes  of  progress,  besides  its  agricultural  fertility — 
and  handsome  (if  too  Americanized)  San  Luis  Potosi, 
with  its  two  through  railroads,  its  great  and  splendid- 
ly equipped  mining  industries  (including  the  greatest 
silver  and  lead  reduction  works  in  America,  those  of 
the  Compafiia  Metalurgica  Mexicana),  and  its  vantage- 
ground  between  the  vegetable  wealth  of  the  tierra 
caliente  and  the  mineral  riches  of  the  tierra  fria.  And 
there  are  modern  and  wakeful  Monterey,  and  slower, 
but  as  sure,  Durango*  with  its  smelter,  its  iron  mines, 
and  its  hopes  of  outlet  to  the  West  Coast.  There  is 
Morelia  (once  Valladolid  de  Michuacan,  but  renamed 
for  the  patriot  priest  Morelos),  the  home  of  such  archi- 
tecture as  marks  its  Normal  School,  and  of  the  first 
sweeping  philanthropy  in  Mexico,  as  distinguished 
from  the  local  philanthropies  of  school,  hospital,  etc. 
Here  lived  and  toiled  the  first  bishop  of  Michuacan, 
Vasco  de  Quiroga,  a  forgotten  man  who  did  more  for 
the  Indians  than  that  overrated  and  underbalanced 
Bartolome  de  las  Casas,  who  stands  with  innocent 
Helps  and  his  peers  as  about  the  sum  and  substance 
of  Spanish  mercy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  only 
when  we  lay  aside  the  crazy  bishop  of  Chiapas  that 
we  can  really  comprehend  the  humanity  of  the  Con- 
quest and  its  sequel.  Michuacan  is  a  relatively  small 
state,  but  a  very  rich  one,  ranging   from  the  central 

*  The  old  "Guadiana,"  founded  1559,  under  the  second  vice- 
roy, Velasco  el  Primero,  as  a  military  outpost  against  the  sav- 
age tribes. 
10 


I46  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

plateau  down  to  Pacific  tide -water;  and  with  better 
transit  will  be  a  stalwart  factor  in  national  progress. 
In  it  is  Pazcuaro,  with  one  of  the  loveliest  lakes  in 
the  world,  and  last  abiding -place  of  the  wonderful 
"  feather  -work  "  which  once  adorned  priceless  cloaks 
of  Aztec  chiefs,  but  is  now  known  chiefly  by  cheap 
"pictures"  in  the  curio  stores.  In  1829  the  aborigi- 
nal industry  was  already  disappearing,  and  the  Mexi- 
can Congress  voted  $800  to  one  Jose"  Rodriguez,  a 
remnant  expert,  for  making  the  national  coat-of-arms 
in  this  feather-work. 

Nor  need  the  traveller  slight  Lerdo,  in  the  famous 
Laguna  cotton -belt;  and  seductive  Aguas  Calientes, 
with  its  enormous  new  smelter ;  Celaya  and  San  Juan 
del  Rio ;  Lagos,  Saltillo,  and  many  more  towns  of 
consideration,  richly  set. 

The  Gulf  coast  has  several  potential  harbors,  but 
thus  far  only  three  competent  ones.  Tampico  (Pueblo 
Viejo)  was  first  visited  by  Grijalva  in  15 18.  The  bar, 
with  only  five  or  six  feet  of  water,  denied  even  the 
petty  vessels  of  the  Conquest  and  kept  the  natural 
harbor  unavailable.  The  present  town  was  not  found- 
ed till  April  12,  1823.  Now  the  great  improvements 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Panuco  (and  its  connection  with 
the  Mexican  Central)  guarantee,  I  should  say,  the  pre- 
eminence of  Tampico  over  all  other  Gulf  ports.  Al- 
ready the  largest  vessels  can  lay-to  at  the  enormous 
wharf,  and  the  day  of  the  lighters  is  done.  Here,  by 
the  way,  was  the  legendary  landing-place  of  the  "  Tol- 
tecs  "  when  they  invaded  Mexico. 

Vera  Cruz,  where  Cortez  founded  in  15 19  the  first 
town  on  the  American  continent — La  Villa  Rica  de 


SOME   OUTER  ACTIVITIES  147 

Vera  Cruz — has  always  been  the  chief  outlet  of  Mexi- 
co, despite  the  wretchedness  of  its  harbor.  The  mod- 
ern works  there  are  at  last  making  safe  the  most  his- 
toric port  of  the  New  World.  There  are  hasty  travel- 
lers fearful  of  its  climate  (and  not  unreasonably)  who 
see  in  it  only  a  landing-place  to  be  got  away  from 
cuanto  antes  mejor.  But  Vera  Cruz  is  deeply  pictu- 
resque, with  its  lighter  architecture  still  Moresque,  its 
types,  \\.s  playas,  and  its  coral  fortress  of  San  Juan  de 
Ulua  (a  corruption  of  the  Indian  Acolhua).  The  for- 
tifications of  this  port  cost  fifty  millions  in  the  old 
days — and  never  kept  any  foe  out.  The  tributary 
country  is  of  marvellous  variety,  even  for  Mexico;  and 
its  best  has  almost  infinite  fertility.  Perhaps  nowhere 
else  can  one  see  so  diagrammatically  as  on  the  road 
from  Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico  the  range  of  what  Hum- 
boldt so  aptly  calls  "climates  in  strata" — that  won- 
derful Mexican  range  where  in  the  same  latitude 
flourish  the  apple  and  the  banana,  wheat  and  the 
sugar-cane,  the  oak  and  pine  and  palm.  Here  is  the 
home  of  the  vanilla ;  and  that  less  agreeable  flavor 
which  has  given  its  name  to  Jalapa,  a  poblacion  perhaps 
as  pretty  as  any  inland  town  on  earth.  There  are  no 
better  cottons,  tobaccos,  cacaos,  and  sarsaparillas  than 
those  of  the  state  of  Vera  Cruz  ;  and  its  cane  sur- 
passes that  of  Santo  Domingo.  From  tide-water  to 
the  highest  peak  in  North  America  (Orizaba,  known 
to  the  Aztecs  as  Citlal-tepetl,  the  star-mountain,  18,200 
feet  *)  is  the  gamut  of  Vera  Cruz.  The  porphyry 
peak  of  the  Cofre  del  Perote  (Nauhcampa-tepetl),  in 

*  Raised  to  its  supremacy  by  the  more  precise  orometries  of 
this  decade. 


I48  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

its  pumice  overcoat  (13,400  feet),  and  the  bold  13,470- 
foot  "  Malinche,"*  are  other  splendid  landmarks  of 
the  region.  The  town  of  Orizaba  (a  corruption  of  the 
Nahuatl  "ahuilizapan")  is  only  4000  feet  in  altitude 
and  only  twenty-five  miles  from  its  namesake  peak. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  of  Mexican  towns, 
and,  with  its  huge  cotton-mills  and  other  factories,  one 
of  the  most  promising. 

Coatzacoalcos  (which  Humboldt  appraised  as  "  the 
best  natural  harbor  of  any  river  that  enters  the  gulf") 
is  of  unique  importance,  not  so  much  for  the  great 
commerce  of  parts  of  Tabasco,  Chiapas,  Oaxaca,  and 
Vera  Cruz,  to  meet  which  the  present  large  improve- 
ments are  fitting  it,  as  for  its  geographic  position.  It 
is  key  to  the  narrowest  of  all  the  Mexican  isthmus, 
where  the  two  oceans  are  not  over  130  miles  apart  in 
a  bee-line,  the  shortest  cut  there  is  till  you  go  as  far 
south  as  Nicaragua.  However  neglected  by  provin- 
cial politicians,  however  discredited  by  due  suspicion 
of  the  promoters  of  impossible  fakes,  the  destiny  of 
interoceanic  communication  is  manifest  and  inevita- 
ble. I  believe  the  Panama  canal  will  never  be  built — 
that  by  sane  business-men  it  never  can  be.  The  Nica- 
ragua or  the  Tehuantepec  route — or  maybe  both — in- 
evitably will  be.  Already  by  1 520,  Cortez,  in  his  fourth 
Letter  to  the  Emperor,  foreshadows  the  great  work 
we  have  been  too  dull  to  do  yet,  and  speaks  of  the 
Isthmus  of  Tehuantepec  as  el  secreto  del  estrecho — the 
secret  of  the  strait.  And  the  viceroy,  Conde  de  Re- 
villagigedo  (1789),  projected  a  transisthmian  canal  via 

*  A  corruption  of  Marina,  the  name  of  Cortez's  Indian  sweet- 
heart, with  the  diminutive  "tzin";  the  aboriginal  title  of  the 
peak  was  Matlal-cueitl. 


SOME   OUTER   ACTIVITIES  I49 

the  river  Coatzacoalcos.  Apart  from  its  effect  upon 
the  rest  of  the  world,  commercially  —  and  for  the 
United  States,  of  course,  no  other  one  enterprise 
could  mean  so  much  as  such  extraneous  bond  be- 
tween the  halves  of  a  nation  now  sundered  by  the 
"long  haul"  of  desert  railroads  —  some  such  cheap 
interoceanic  highway  is  a  near  necessity  to  Mexico. 
Not  for  present  commerce  alone,  but  to  exploit  the 
incalculably  rich  but  now  difficult  south,  to  open  its 
rubber,  sugar,  and  precious  woods  to  the  world,  Mexi- 
co must  have  it.  And  it  would  be  somewhat  a  joke 
(nor  is  it  an  impossible  one)  if  Mexico  were  to  do  the 
work.  Balanced,  as  it  were,  between  the  two  oceans, 
compact  and  central  with  regard  to  the  long  commerce 
of  the  world,  it  is  hard  to  foretell  what  influence  upon 
trade  and  politics  the  new  republic  might  have,  with 
this  canal  in  her  hands. 


XIII 
GLIMPSES  OF  THE  WEST  COAST 

Mazatlan  from  seaward  is  a  picture  not  readily 
forgotten,  but  never  yet  adequately  photographed. 
Its  turquoise  semilune  of  a  bay,  symmetrically  set  be- 
tween three  precipitous  islands  to  the  north  and  three 
to  the  south,  washes  the  very  hem  of  the  town,  whose 
adobes  turn  to  marble  with  distance  and  the  sun.  On 
the  northern  outer  island — once  refuge  of  wholesale 
cimarrones  (runaway  slaves)->-perches  the  light-house, 
perhaps  300  feet  above  the  tide.  It  poses  at  home  as 
the  highest  faro  in  the  world.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
that  of  San  Lorenzo,  in  front  of  Callao,  is  more  than 
thrice  as  high. 

This  outpost  of  the  tropics — six  leagues  south  of 
the  Tropic  of  Cancer,  and  already  in  sight  of  the 
Southern  Cross — is  now  the  (commercially)  first  port 
on  the  Pacific  coast  of  Mexico,  and  until  very  recently 
was  surpassed  only  by  Vera  Cruz.  Now  Tampico  and 
Coatzacoalcos  will  far  outstrip  it,  and  it  will  not  come 
back  to  its  own  until  one  of  the  transcontinental 
lines  creeps  down  to  it. 

From  the  seaman's  point  of  view  it  is  a  poor  harbor 
— in  fact,  it  is  no  harbor  at  all,  but  merely  a  good 
roadstead.  Vessels  of  1 8-feet  draught  anchor  a  mile  and 
a  half  from  the  wharf,  and  further  familiarity  must  be 


GLIMPSES  OF  THE  WEST   COAST  151 

left  to  the  lighters.  But  politically  and  geographical- 
ly it  is  a  very  important  point.  It  is  key  to  the  Gulf 
of  California — or  Gulf  of  Cortez,  for  its  discoverer ;  or 
Mar  Bermejo,  for  the  tingeing  of  its  waters  by  ferrugi- 
nous streams — and  is,  so  to  say,  the  midway  port  of 
the  Mexican  West.  Up  the  gulf  are  the  good  harbors 
of  Guaymas  (reached  by  the  Sonora  railroad  *  from 
Arizona)  and  of  Topolobampo,  destined  to  be  the  ter- 
minus of  another  line  from  the  "  States."  Down  the 
coast  are  the  magnificent  natural  harbors  of  Manza- 
nillo  and  Acapulco,  besides  various  embarcaderos  of 
less  future. 

Mazatlan  has  possibly  12,000  souls,  and  its  manu- 
factures are  minor;  but  it  commands  a  vast  interior 
of  rich  potentiality.  It  was  formerly  port  not  only 
for  Sinaloa,  but  as  well  for  Sonora,  Chihuahua,  Du- 
rango,  and  so  far  inland  as  Zacatecas.  The  opening 
of  ports  at  San  Bias  and  Manzanillo  cut  it  down  at 
home,  and  our  San  Francisco  has  put  a  knee  in  its 
old-time  China  trade;  that  commerce  goes  now  to 
California  first,  and  is  thence  parcelled  out  to  Maz- 
atlan. 

Its  coast  trade  is  still  important,  and  the  prospects 
more  so.  It  is  the  commercial  centre  of  rich  mining 
districts,  and  gold  and  silver  bullion  form  the  great  ma- 
jority of  its  exports.  The  famous  mines  of  the  Real 
del  Rosario,  twenty-seven  leagues  inland,  were  discov- 
ered in  1655,  and  are  still  profitably  worked  by  new- 
comers.   This  spring  of  many  fortunes  takes  its  name 

*  Recently  acquired  by  the  Southern  Pacific  from  the  Atchi- 
son in  exchange  for  the  California  line  between  Needles  and 
Mojave.  This  was,  perhaps,  the  first  time  in  history  that  rail- 
roads were  ever  "  swapped." 


152  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A   NATION 

from  the  curious  chance  of  its  finding.  One  Leon  Ro- 
jas,  a  countryman,  was  "  running"  a  belated  steer  when 
his  rosary  broke.  Piously  unwilling  to  lose  the  scat- 
tered beads,  he  dismounted — but  could  not  find  them 
in  the  dusk.  Being  a  person  of  tenacity,  he  passed 
the  night  there ;  and  in  the  morning  found  not  only 
his  beads,  but  a  film  of  silver  which  his  camp-fire  had 
roasted  from  the  virgin  soil.  The  state  has  a  mint  in 
Culiacan,  established  in  1846;  and  the  mines  have 
yielded  bullion  for  all  necessities  of  the  coinage,  and 
several  yearly  millions  for  export  besides.  Cattle 
come  next  to  mining.  The  interior,  too  wooded  for 
sheep,  is  admirably  adapted  to  horses  and  horned 
herds,  which  are  in  abundance.  The  pelts  of  these 
and  of  alligators  (which  swarm  in  the  coast  streams) 
are  a  staple  of  export ;  and  the  home  tanneries  also 
handle  the  skins  of  the  beautiful  felidae  of  the  moun- 
tains— the  jaguar,  the  cougar,  and  the  ocelot.  Agri- 
culture, due  to  be  chief  of  Sinaloan  industries,  is  thus 
far  the  least  advanced.  There  are  no  important  irri- 
gating canals,  and  the  whole  productive  state  is  in 
but  the  doorway  of  development.  Corn  leads,  and 
is  the  staple  of  the  natives ;  with  that  universal  Span- 
ish credo,  the  frijol,  a  good  second.  Wheat  is  com- 
paratively little  sown  as  yet,  and  the  grape  is  rare. 
Of  the  abundant  fruits,  the  orange,  cocoanut,  and 
plantain  are  most  prodigal;  and  the  agreeable pitihaya 
— fruit  of  the  organ  cactus — grows  riot,  a  "  board  by 
the  month  "  for  the  peasantry  and  an  article  of  export 
inland.  It  even  christened  the  state  —  Sinaloa,  or 
sinaloaha,  being  the  Cahiti  name  for  this  fruit. 

The  once-famous  pearl  fisheries  of  the  West  Coast, 
from  which  in  1587  no  less  than  632  pounds  of  pearls 


GLIMPSES  OF  THE  WEST  COAST  1 53 

were  taken  to  Seville,*  are  nowadays  neglected — not 
that  they  are  "  played  out,"  but  because  other  indus- 
tries have  for  the  time  crowded  them  aside. 

For  a  town  founded  in  1822  with  a  few  huts,  Maz- 
atlan  has  had  its  fair  taste  of  history.  It  has  changed 
its  name  thrice,  beginning  as  Ortigosa,  rising  to  Villa 
de  las  Costillas,  and  finally  adopting  its  present  name 
from  the  Aztec  —  mazatl,  deer;  tlan,  place.  It  has 
been  several  times  the  capital  of  Sinaloa,  and  all  times 
a  nest  of  revolution.  It  became  a  garrison  town  in 
1844,  and  lost  no  time  in  rebelling  against  Santa 
Anna.  In  1846  it  hatched  another  revolt.  We  block- 
aded and  finally  captured  it  in  1847.  Mexican  revo- 
lutionists took  it  by  storm  in  1859.  ^n  tne  sacrifice 
of  Maximilian  it  figured  again,  being  the  only  foot- 
hold in  Sinaloa  of  the  meddlers.  The  French  cor- 
vette Cordeliere  bombarded  it  in  1864,  but  was  driven 
off  by  one  agile  cannon  in  the  plaza.  Seven  months 
later  a  French  naval  division  captured  the  town  after 
a  bombardment,  and  it  was  Maximilian's  for  two  years 
to  a  day  —  when  General  Corona  recaptured  it  and 
put  an  end  to  intervention  in  Sinaloa.  In  1868  Maz- 
atlan  was  again  the  seat  of  a  revolt  against  the  gov- 
ernment, and  for  three  years  was  infested  with  troub- 
les. In  1 87 1  it  rose  again,  and  was  taken  by  storm 
in  the  following  year  —  only  to  erupt  once  more  in 
1876.  The  list  of  governors  of  Sinaloa  since  the  state 
was  founded  (1830)  is  of  more  length  than  breadth — 
with  its  incumbents  "for  ten  days,"  "  for  two  days," 
"  for  seven  days." 

Mazatlan    is   characteristically   ear  -  marked  —  flat- 

*  Father  Acosta,  Book  IV.,  Chapter  XV. 


154  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

topped,  practically  one-storied,  and  compact ;  cleaned 
to  the  ultimate  crumb  by  its  double  health  -  depart- 
ment, the  vultures  and  the  donkey-carts  of  the  munic- 
ipality (and  thereby  more  scrupulously  neat  than  any 
city  of  ours);  its  fresh,  light  walls  sharp  in  the  rilievo 
of  their  shade-trap  angles  (there  are  no  other  shadows 
like  those  of  the  adobe)  and  the  still  darker  plumes  of 
palm  and  plantain  in  court-yard  and  garden ;  its  nar- 
row streets,  painfully  but  durably  empedradas  with 
cobble-stones  from  the  beach,  deserted  on  the  side  of 
the  sun,  alive  but  leisurely  on  the  side  of  the  shade ; 
its  picturesque  folk,  and  over  all  and  around  all  the 
indescribable  atmosphere  of  New  Spain,  with  all  its 
courtesy,  its  content,  its  restfulness. 

We  saunter  up  from  the  wharf  along  the  excellent 
stone  mole;  past  a  very  respectable  iron-foundry,  a 
good  tannery,  the  gas-works,  a  one-mule  horse-car  going 
in  our  direction,  and  humble  match  and  cigarette  fac- 
tories uncounted ;  through  irresolute  streets  which 
finally  decide  upon  the  plaza — one  triangle  of  tropic 
bloom — and  on  to  the  ship-yard,  author  of  the  excel- 
lent launches  which  surprise  the  traveller  at  the  steam- 
er. The  few  principal  streets  are  modest  but  pleas- 
ant, with  their  stringent  neatness  and  their  glimpses 
by  cool  doorways  to  wide  pdtws.  The  Spanish-Ameri- 
can idea  of  a  dwelling  is  not  met  by  a  box,  of  what- 
soever size  and  sumptuousness.  It  must  be  a  home 
not  only  for  the  family,  but  for  a  bit  of  out-doors  as 
well.  Instead  of  making  a  lawn  to  dazzle  the  passer 
and  be  lost  to  the  dweller,  the  transplanted  Iberian 
still  takes  his  lawn  into  the  sitting-room.  He  builds 
not  behind  it,  but  around  it ;  and  every  room  opens 
into  it,  and  every  inmate  can  lounge  in  its  freshness 


CHOLOS  OF   THE   WEST   COAST 


GLIMPSES  OF  THE  WEST  COAST  1 55 

secure  from  unentitled  eyes.  Its  fountain,  its  foliage, 
its  cool  verandas,  are  part  of  the  home  and  not  of  the 
street. 

Back  of  these  homelike  homes,  in  little  tilted  alleys, 
are  the  chosas  of  the  poor — boatmen,  laborers,  porters, 
fishers — rude  apologies  to  a  complacent  sky,  with  care- 
less cane  and  rushes,  and  naked  babes  and  laughter, 
and  all  the  trade-marks  of  the  tropics,  where  to  be 
poor  is  not  to  want.  Aside  from  the  few  foreigners, 
there  are  four  distinct  classes  in  Mazatlan — the  Cre- 
oles, mestizos,  mulattoes,  and  Indians.  Five  aboriginal 
tongues — each  with  two  to  four  dialects  —  are  still 
spoken  in  Sinaloa,  and  representatives  of  all  may  be 
encountered  in  the  port.  Despite  its  cleanliness,  Maz- 
atlan is  liable  at  certain  periods  to  malarial  fevers, 
dysenteries,  and  the  like;  while  a  little  northward  the 
country  is  notably  healthful.  Almost  without  ex- 
ception, the  direct  coast  of  Mexico,  on  Gulf  or  Pacific, 
is  not  salubrious  to  be  lived  on. 

The  roadstead  of  San  Bias  distends  an  arc  of  low, 
dense,  tropical  shore.  There  are  better  harbors,  and 
worse.  The  town,  half  a  mile  from  the  curved  beach, 
where  the  lighters  land  by  a  caiman-infested  estuary, 
has  two  thousand  souls — and  the  content  of  a  half-mill- 
ion. It  is  almost  undiluted  tropics.  Apart  from  the 
modest  plaza — with  its  small  adobe  church,  its  adobe 
post-office  glassy  and  brassy  with  Yale  lock -boxes, 
and  two  other  adobe  streets — everything  is  of  cane  and 
palmetto.  The  chief  industry  —  if  so  harsh  a  word 
may  be  applied  to  work  without  worry  (which  is  play) 
— is  the  making  of  cigars  and  cigarettes.  Both  are  of 
an  excellence  and  cheapness  calculated  to  make  the 


156  THE   AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

wanderer  smoke  and  think — the  latter  particularly  if 
he  has  been  accustomed  to  being  fined  at  home  for 
smoking  decently.  This  is  outlet  for  the  Tepic  tobac- 
co-belt ;  not  the  best  in  Mexico,  but  withal  one  whose 
best  product  the  connoisseur  is  very  glad  to  puff.  But 
now  a  railroad  has  its  nose  turned  to  San  Bias  from 
the  central  plateau.  When  that  reaches  salt-water 
there  will  be  another  story  from  this  present  sleeper. 

Perhaps  it  is  its  exquisite  proportion  which  gives  to 
Manzanillo  the  air  of  a  toy  harbor ;  for  it  is  large 
enough  for  a  navy,  and  for  security  has  but  two 
equals  on  the  west  coast  of  the  United  States.  An 
arm  of  hills  hugs  the  blue  bay,  whose  waters  are  deep- 
er than  is  usual. on  Pacific  shores  and  more  beautiful 
than  almost  any  others  in  the  world.  The  big  steam- 
er floats  in  a  perfect  aquarium,  whose  very  pebbles 
are  visible  as  the  innumerable  rallies  of  sharks,  fifty- 
pound  gold-fish  (the  pargo  or  "  red  -snapper"),  and  a 
hundred  other  finny  shapes.  It  is  a  vision  the  most 
hardened  globe-trotter  will  never  forget. 

Manzanillo  is  a  perfect  jewel  of  the  tropics — with 
one  sole  exception  the  loveliest  coast-picture  between 
California  and  Chile.  Snuggled  along  the  base  of  its 
abrupt  and  matted  hills  behind,  its  front  is  bent  to 
the  exquisite  curve  of  beach.  The  chalky  adobe 
houses,  peaked  with  red  tiles ;  the  streets  spotless  as 
after  the  besom  of  a  New  England  housewife,  and 
"  enstoned  "  (by  the  Spanish  of  it)  in  wonderful  pat- 
terns of  cobble ;  the  plaza,  one  great  blossom  ;  the 
massy  little  church  uplifted  like  a  benediction  upon 
the  town  ;  an  air  which  seems  distilled  of  butterflies 
and  birds  and  flowers,  a  sky  like  California  and  a  bay 


PLAZA    AND    CATHEDRAL,    ACAPULCO 


GLIMPSES   OF  THE  WEST   COAST  1 57 

like  Italy  for  blue — it  is  all  a  canvas  few  lands  can 
match. 

If  Manzanillo  has  but  a  thousand  souls,  its  impor- 
tance is  commensurate  rather  with  its  beauty  than  its 
population.  It  is  a  real  port,  well  sheltered  and  well 
fathomed  ;  and  from  tide-water  a  railroad  is  already  so 
far  inland  as  Colima  (capital  of  the  state  of  the  same 
name),  its  ninety-six  kilometres  insuring  the  projected 
rail  connection  with  the  interior. 

Acapulco,  the  most  beautiful  Pacific  port  in  the 
Americas,  is  also  the  second  finest  harbor  in  the  world, 
Sydney  alone  outranking  it  —  no  better  sheltered  but 
far  larger.  My  conviction  is  that  it  is  destined  to  be 
one  of  the  largest  assets  of  modern  Mexico.  All  it 
needs  is  a  railroad  to  the  capital — and  that  is  creeping 
rapidly  towards  Acapulco.  Here  for  centuries  came 
the  Manila  galleon.  Here  the  copper  of  Coquimbo, 
the  silks  of  Canton,  and  the  chocolate-nuts  of  Guaya- 
quil were  beached  to  begin  their  overland  journey, 
pickaback  by  mule,  to  Spain  and  way-stations.  Over 
that  historic  pack-trail  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
and  fascinating  paseos,  by  horse  or  mule,  that  man  can 
make  in  any  land — though  I  have  known  tourists  who 
saw  nothing  of  it  but  the  holes  in  the  path. 

The  coast  all  along  here  is  of  cliffs  wading  into  the 
very  sea.  The  steamer  seems  almost  to  split  them,  so 
unforeseen  is  the  cleft.  Into  a  blue  channel,  bluff- 
walled,  it  turns,  to  the  right  of  the  rocky  isle  of  La 
Roqueta  (captured  by  the  meteoric  Galeana  in  the 
War  of  Independence),  and  steers  straight  upon  the 
inland  ridges.  But  timely  before  them  another  sudden 
channel  opens  to  the  left,  and  rounding  its  elbow  the 


158  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

vessel  steams  up  the  bay  and  anchors  in  gunshot  of 
the  town.  It  is  the  very  foot  of  a  stocking — the  ankle 
to  sea,  the  instep  shoreward,  the  anchorage  in  the  toe. 
The  hills  which  hedge  it  from  the  sea  are  bold  and 
high ;  and  to  get  air  to  breathe  in  town  the  extreme 
western  cerro  had  to  be  beheaded. 

It  is  all  the  picture  of  a  dream.  The  soft  green  of 
the  bay — to  which  not  even  the  Pacific  ground-swell 
can  enter — is  cut  by  the  sombre  green  of  beachless 
hills  which  mock  so  impotent  a  word  as  "  wooded." 
They  are  zvoolled,  with  a  dark  mat  which  seems  rather 
carved  than  grown,  so  unyielding  is  it.  At  the  water's 
edge,  here  and  there,  rise  the  high  plumed  heads  of 
palms,  with  glimpses  of  plantations  between  their  col- 
onnades. On  a  long,  narrow  strand  of  the  northern 
shore  are  strung  the  irregular  white  beads  of  the 
town,  ended  at  the  left  by  the  truncate  hill,  at  the 
right  by  the  gray  old  fort. 

Than  Acapulco  there  is  no  better  type  of  the  Mexi- 
can tierra  caliente.  It  is  the  jewel  of  all  tropic  Ameri- 
ca ;  artistically  it  has  no  superior  in  any  land,  and  in 
this  hemisphere  no  equal. 

Its  history  goes  back  to  1531,  when  Cortez  himself 
discovered  the  harbor.  From  this  point  he  sent  out  the 
ill-starred  expedition  which  found  Sinaloa — and  per- 
ished there.*  The  town  has  about  6000  people,  and  is 
compact  and  bright ;  but  when  Mr.  Hampson's  road 
from  "the  city"  gets  here  (which  will  be  soon),  Acapulco 
will  come  to  its  own.  Just  now  it  is  more  Mexican 
(and    therefore   more  artistic)  than   any  of  the  Gulf 

*  From  Acapulco,  also,  Hernando  de  Alarcon,  the  first  dis- 
coverer of  our  California  (via  the  Colorado  river),  sailed  May 
9,  1540.     He  was  sent  by  Viceroy  Mendoza. 


' 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   WEST   COAST  1 59 

ports,  as  it  is  also  far  less  known.  The  alluring  old 
plaza,  with  the  quaint  bulk  of  the  church  behind,  and 
at  one  side  the  stalls  and  tatters  of  an  unspoiled  Mexi- 
can market-place,  and  the  buildings  standing  up  to  a 
second  story — these  are  good,  but  better  is  beyond. 
I  suppose  man  has  never  known  a  more  perfect  stroll 
than  that  by  moonlight  from  the  plaza  to  the  fort. 
Away  from  the  more  crowded  centre,  up  a  slop- 
ing street  of  ancient  paving,  half  tunnel-like  under  gi- 
gantic aviates,  whose  ten-foot  trunks  stand  on  clumsy 
tiptoe  of  arched  roots ;  with  furtive  loopholes  be- 
tween these  and  the  high  -  thatched  cabins  to  the 
moonlit  bay;  and  under  the  ponderous  bastions  which 
laughed  at  Morelos,  but  opened  to  the  first  knock  of 
Maximilian — it  is  all  a  memory  which  half  comes  to 
be  mistrusted.  It  seems  too  perfect  to  have  been 
true — such  more  than  moonlight,  such  angles  of  shade, 
such  salients  of  whiteness,  such  consenting  of  all  Nat- 
ure in  one  picture  unforgettable  a  lifetime.  I  had 
thought  to  lose  the  gloss  from  the  wings  of  this  tropic 
butterfly  with  the  fourth  catching ;  but  the  more  I  see 
Acapulco  the  more  it  impresses  me  as  the  most  per- 
fect composition  in  all  the  galleries  of  the  New  World. 
As  for  material  prospects,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  will 
be  the  port  of  Mexico  on  the  Pacific,  and  chief  point 
of  commerce  in  three  thousand  miles  of  coast-line. 


XIV 
BORROWED  FROM  THE  ENEMY 

THERE  are  no  more  interesting  nomads  than  words ; 
no  others  which  can  so  go  gypsying  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth  and  homestead  there — yet  still  retain  residence 
in  their  birthplace.  And  among  these  wanderers 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  that  outlast  time  and  laugh  at 
space,  no  others  have  quite  such  romance  to  us  as 
those  we  have  adopted  from  Spanish  America.  We 
have  never  borrowed  as  many  words  from  any  other 
contemporary  language  —  except  French,  so  much 
more  intimate  neighbor  of  our  ancestors.  Nor  have 
any  others  stood  quite  so  intimately  linked  with  the 
beginnings  and  most  picturesque  phases  of  our  own 
national  life. 

It  is  astonishing  what  a  successful  invasion  of  Eng- 
lish has  been  made  by  the  sons  of  those  who  failed 
with  the  Armada.  With  the  ebb  and  flow  of  frontiers, 
the  innumerable  driftwood  of  the  Castilian  tongue 
has  lodged  here,  there,  everywhere.  And  where  it 
once  came  it  was  never  forgotten.  The  Iberian  had 
an  almost  matchless  aptitude  at  nomenclature — an 
ear  not  only  for  music  of  the  tongue,  but  for  harmony 
of  meaning,  both  of  which  are  rather  lost  on  a  race  of 
Smithvillains  and  Jonesburrowers.  He  rather  overdid 
the  saint  business,  perhaps — though  saints  may  be  as 


BORROWED  FROM  THE  ENEMY  l6l 

good  godfathers  as  are  crossroads  autocrats.  But 
aside  from  that,  his  names  were  all  melodious  and  the 
rest  of  them  almost  invariably  appropriate.  For  the 
one  reason  or  the  other,  they  have  stuck  like  burrs. 
Two-thirds  of  the  geographical  names  in  the  New 
World  to-day  are  of  Spanish  derivation  ;  and  the  same 
linguistic  tracks  are  abundant  in  every  other  walk  of 
American  life.  This  swart  name-putter  has  penetrated 
ubiquitously  and  intimately  the  speech  of  his  tradi- 
tional foe.  You  will  hardly  turn  a  corner  in  our  dic- 
tionaries without  running  up  against  him.  Nothing 
but  words — yet  it  gives  one  a  little  thrill  to  find  all 
across  the  deserts  where  they  left  their  bones,  in  every 
nook  of  the  unforeseen  empires  that  have  grown 
upon  their  dust,  these  unobliterated  footprints  of  the 
pioneers. 

If  any  word  might  off-hand  be  taken  for  straight 
English — and  Cockney  at  that — "  Piccadilly  "  might. 
But  "  Piccadilly  "  is  no  Londoner,  nor  even  a  Saxon. 
It  came  straight  from  Spain  and  the  Spanish  parti- 
ciple picado  long  ago — when  a  picadillo  (little  pierced) 
collar  had  a  very  different  style  from  the  now  prover- 
bial one. 

And  what  word  could  be  more  flavorsome  of  our 
South  "befo'  de  wah  "  than  "pickaninny"?  But  it 
is  not  a  native  of  our  cotton-belt — it  came  from  Cuba, 
where  it  was  piquinini,  and  its  parents  were  the  Span- 
ish pequeno  niho  (little  child).  Our  very  word  "  ne- 
gro "  is  a  direct  transfer  from  the  Spanish  negro  (nay- 
gro),  black,  and  that  other  commonest  nickname, 
"  Sambo,"  is  from  the  Castilian  zambo  (bow-legged),  a 
mote  invented  for  the  African  before  there  was  an 
English-speaking  person  in  all  the  New  World.    "  Mu- 


1 62  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A  NATION 

latto,"  "  quadroon  "  {quarter oil),  and  the  like,  are  of 
the  same  parentage. 

You  will  hardly  pick  from  the  New  York  gutter  a 
more  typical  gamin  word  than  "  Dago  "  ;  but  here 
again  the  street-Arab  is  debtor  to  the  true  Arab  heir, 
for  "  Dago "  is  only  an  ignorant  corruption  of  the 
Spanish  patron  saint  Diego  (dee-ay-go),  James. 

The  New  England  housewife  could  not  make  pump- 
kin pie  without  a  "colander"  (which  she  calls  "  cul- 
linder"),  that  useful  strainer  whose  holes  and  name 
were  invented  long  before  Plymouth  Rock — the  Span- 
ish colador.  And,  so  far  as  that  goes,  what  Yankee 
boy  stowing  away  some  of  grandma's  cookies,  with 
joyous  munching  of  the  little  brown  seeds,  dreams  that 
"  caraway  "  originated  not  among  the  Granite  Hills, 
but  in  Spain,  whose  alcaraJiaeya  came  still  earlier 
from  the  Moors?  Even  the  "cloves"  in  the  sweet 
pickle  are  only  Spanish  "nails"  (c/avos);  and  the  old 
farmer's  "almanac"  gets  its  name  from  Arabia  through 
Spain. 

The  "  calabash,"  which  once  made  water  from  the  old 
well  taste  sweeter  than  water  will  ever  taste  again,  is  an- 
other loan  of  Spain,  its  derivation  being  from  calabaza, 
a  gourd.  But  it  has  lost  its  prettiest  romance — in  all 
Spanish  America  the  gift  of  las  calabazas  was  equiva- 
lent to  "  the  mitten."  The  vagrant  clapped  into  the 
"calaboose"  still  finds  the  connection — for  it  was  origi- 
nally calabozo.  The  merchant  prince  would  hardly  be 
an  heir-apparent  were  there  no  such  thing  as  "  cotton  " 
— and  that  gets  its  name  from  coton,  and  that  is  from 
algodon,  with  its  Moorish  earmark.  "  Cottonade," 
even,  is  from  coto?iada. 

"  Palaver  "  was  a  politer  term  before  its  corruption 


BORROWED   FROM   THE   ENEMY  1 63 

from  palabra,  word ;  and  "  savvy  "  did  not  smack  of 
slang  when  it  was  plain  saber,  to  know.  A  "  pecca- 
dillo "  is  unchanged  in  form  and  meaning,  a  little  sin, 
the  diminutive  of  pecado.  The  Kentucky  "  duel  "  had 
its  precedent  and  name  from  the  Spanish  duelo ;  and 
Mosby  was  not  the  first  "  guerrilla  " —  a  little  war, 
diminutive  of  guerra.  New  Orleans  may  not  care  a 
"  picayune,"  but  that  proverbial  coin  is  another  Span- 
ish tag — and  so  were  those  unforgotten  pieces  of  our 
childhood,  the  "  pistareen,"  "  doubloon  "  and  "  red/." 
Indeed,  the  "bit,"  "two-bits,"  "four-bits,"  etc.,  which 
so  perplex  the  tourist  in  the  West,  are  derived  from 
Spanish  standards,  though  they  have  lost  their  Span- 
ish name ;  and  so  is  our  Almighty  "  Dollar." 

The  doctor  could  not  afford  to  lose  a  great  many 
adopted  Spaniards  from  his  lexicon  —  particularly 
"quinine"  and  "cocaine."  Quinine  (Spanish  quind) 
was  discovered  by  the  Countess  of  Chinchon,  then 
vice-queen  of  Peru,  in  163 1.  "Cocaine"  is  the  active 
principle  of  coca,  that  marvellous  plant  of  the  Andes 
which  is  almost  board  and  lodging  to  the  Serrano  Ind- 
ians of  Peru  and  Bolivia,  and  has  been  held  sacred 
by  them  from  time  immemorial.  They  call  it  by  its 
Quichua  name,  cuca,  whence  the  Spanish  coca,  which 
we  have  adopted.  Jalap  comes  from  Jalapa,  in  Vera 
Cruz,  and  sarsaparilla  is  another  debt  to  Spanish  Amer- 
ica in  name  and  fact. 

It  is  fascinating  to  trail  some  of  these  word-wander- 
ings. Four  hundred  and  five  years  ago  Columbus 
picked  up  a  little  word  in  the  Antilles,  and  put  it  in  the 
mouth  of  Europe ;  and  to-day  an  American  summer 
would  be  lonely  without  it.  It  was  an  Indian  word 
which  the  Spaniards  represented  by  hamaca  (ah-mah-ca) 


164  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

and  which  we  call  "hammock."  The  word  "  Indian  " 
itself  (in  the  sense  of  American  aborigine)  dates  from 
the  same  time,  when  the  world  took  Columbus's  dis- 
covery to  be  part  of  India,  and  called  it  las  Indias,  and 
the  inhabitants  Indios. 

The  proper  name  of  the  American  lion  to-day  is 
"  puma" — and  that  is  an  Inca  word  that  Pizarro  found 
in  the  Fifteen-thirties  among  the  Andes.  The  animal 
has  a  range  5000  miles  long ;  but  its  Peruvian  name 
came  up  to  the  Isthmus,  took  root  in  Mexico,  entered 
Arizona  and  New  Mexico  with  Coronado  himself  in 
1540,  and  by  now  is  accepted  not  only  in  all  Spanish 
countries,  but  wherever  English  is  spoken.  "Cougar," 
the  next  best  single  name  for  the  animal,  is  from  the 
ciiguacaari  of  a  tribe  in  Brazil.  "  Condor  "  has  a  sim- 
ilar history.  It  is  the  Inca  word  citntiir  (from  cuno- 
furi,  snow-biter)  done  into  Spanish  and  broadcasted 
over  the  world.  "  Cuye  "  or  "  cue,"  the  proper  name 
of  the  miscalled  guinea-pig,  is  another  Peruvian  word. 
"Jaguar,"  the  American  tiger,  was  jaguar  a  (ha-gwah- 
ra)  among  the  Indians  of  Brazil.  The  "  manatee,"  or 
river-cow,  is  from  manati,  the  Spanish  form  of  another 
Brazilian  word;  "macaw"  is  from  macao ;  and  "mar- 
gay,"  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  tiger-cats,  is  one 
more  Spanish  importation  from  the  Amazon.  The  great- 
est of  snakes,  the  "  boa,"  was  named  by  the  Indians 
of  the  Antilles.  "Coati"  (a  species  of  monkey)  and 
"  tapir  "  (Spanish  tapiro)  are  also  from  South  America. 
"  Chinchilla  "  is  a  pure  Spanish  name  for  the  fine-furred 
little  beast  the  explorers  of  Peru  first  made  known  to 
the  world  ;  and  the  like  is  true  of  "  armadillo  "  (the  lit- 
tle armored  creature  ;  from  armadd).  "  Vicuna  "  (vee- 
c6on-ya)  is  the  record  of  a  curious  misunderstanding. 


BORROWED   FROM  THE  ENEMY  165 

The  Aymara  name  of  this  most  beautifully  furred  ani- 
mal is  huari ;  but  the  infinitive  of  their  verb  which 
means  to  cry  like  a  huari  is  hui-cuna.  Probably  the 
first  Spaniards  who  heard  that  strange  sound  asked, 
"What  is  that?"  and  mistook  the  answer,  "  It  bleats," 
for  the  name  of  the  animal. 

There — is  a  whole  lesson  in  etymology.  A  similar 
blunder  is  probably  responsible  for  the  name  of  the 
vicufia's  bigger  cousin,  the  llama.  The  Aymara  name  of 
it  is  cdr-hua  ;  but  we  may  guess  that  the  conquistador  s 
question,  "  Como  se  llama?"  ("What  is  it  called  ?")  was 
merely  echoed  by  the  Indian,  who  did  not  understand 
a  word  of  this  new  tongue.  "  Llama?"  he  repeated — 
and  llama  it  has  been  ever  since.  A  great  many 
words  get  into  the  dictionaries  no  more  wisely.  It  is 
said  that  "kangaroo" — which  is  no  Australian  name 
of  the  beast — arose  thus:  one  of  the  earliest  English 
visitors  had  killed  a  marsupial  and  asked  a  native, 
"  What  do  you  call  this  ?"  The  native  answered, 
"  Kan-gii-ru  " — "  I  do  not  understand." 

The  four  most  curious  animals  in  the  New  World 
are  the  little  camels  of  the  Andes— the  llama  (l'yah- 
ma),  vicufla,  huanaco,  and  alpaca.  The  latter  name — 
familiar  to  every  woman,  though  few  that  speak  Eng- 
lish ever  wore  a  thread  of  genuine  alpaca — is  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  Inca  word  pachu,  with  the  Moorish- 
Spanish  prefix  al. 

There  is  a  whole  vocabulary  of  native  American 
words,  in  scores  of  different  tongues  and  all  the  way 
from  Colorado  to  Patagonia,  which  we  have  adopted 
into  "  United  States"  solely  from  the  Spanish  version 
of  them.  Some  of  the  most  interesting  are  from  that 
remarkable  federation  of  tribes  which  controlled  the 


1 66  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

"  Lake  "  of  Mexico  and  its  environs.  "  Coyote  "  *  is 
Spanish,  from  the  Aztec  coyotl.  "  Ocelot,"  the  Mexi- 
can tiger-cat,  is  another  Aztec  word,  originally  ocelotl. 
So  is  "  chinchonte,"  the  nickname  of  the  mocking- 
bird, which  was  first  discovered  by  the  conquist 'adores. 
Its  Nahuatl  name  was  cencontl.  Likewise  "  tecolote  " 
(from  tecolotl),  the  widespread  name  of  our  little  prai- 
rie owl.  Even  "  tomato  "  is  from  the  range  of  Mon- 
tezuma, by  name  and  by  nativity.  It  is  merely  the 
Aztec  word  tomatl.\  "  Cayman,"  the  proper  name  of 
the  alligator,  is  the  Spanish  form  of  the  Carib  name. 
"  Alligator,"  by  the  way,  is  a  very  funny  and  very  typi- 
cal instance  of  the  way  new  words  come.  It  is  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  Spanish  el  lagarto  (the  lizard).  Indeed, 
the  unlettered  frontiersman  adds  more  to  our  dictiona- 
ries than  does  the  student.  A  similar  case  is  that  of 
"  lariat " — which  is  as  near  as  an  ignorant  cow-boy 
came  to  the  Spanish  la  reata.  "Lasso"  is  a  like 
blunder  for  the  Spanish  laso,  a  noose. 

"  Canoe  "  is  canoa,  a  word  the  co?tquistadores  picked 
up  in  Hayti ;  as  they  did  "  guano  "  (Quichua  hiianii) 
in  Peru. 

"  Jerky,"  or  "jerked  meat,"  is  another  Spanish  find, 
in  fact  and  name — the  latter  coming  from  the  Aymard 
(Bolivia)  char  qui.  "  Chocolate  "  (choco-ldh-te)  the  con- 
quistadores  gave  us  from  the  Lake  of  Mexico.  Its 
derivation  is  from  the  Aztec  words,  choco  (cacao,  the 
proper  name  for  the  chocolate  nut)  and  latl  (water). 
"  Cocoa  "  also  comes  from  cacao.     "  Potato  "  is  from 


*  Co-yo-te. 

t  Etymologically,  therefore,  the  pronunciation  "  tomayto  "  is 
impossible. 


BORROWED  FROM  THE  ENEMY       1 67 

patata,  the  name  given  by  the  Spaniards  to  that  now- 
universal  tuber  which  they  discovered  in  Ecuador  a 
generation  before  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  born.  Even 
more  important,  they  were  the  first  Europeans  to  dis- 
cover what  we  call  corn  (in  Europe  "  corn  "  without 
the  prefix  "  Indian  "  means  wheat,  barley,  oats,  etc.) ; 
and  the  proper  name,  "  maize,"  comes  from  mahiz,  a 
word  they  learned,  with  the  grain,  from  one  of  the 
tribes  of  the  West  Indies. 

These  words,  which  we  have  more  or  less  uncon- 
sciously derived  from  the  Castilian  finder  and  founder 
of  the  New  World,  crop  out  even  in  such  unexpected 
places  as  our  colonial  history.  There  would  have  been 
no  "grenadiers "  at  Bunker  Hill  except  for  Spain, 
since  the  hand-grenade  and  the  grenadier  both  get 
their  name  from  the  city  of  Granada.  There  seems  an 
equal  incongruity  in  the  name  of  the  "  Greenhorn  " 
mountains  in  Colorado.  They  were  not  named  for 
the  "  tenderfoot,"  but  a  century  before  his  day  were 
christened  cuerno  verde,  green  horn,  for  a  famous  Co- 
manche chief  of  the  time.  For  that  matter,  Colorado 
(the  red),  Texas  (the  tiles),  Nevada  (the  snowy),  Flor- 
ida (the  flowery,  the  Spanish  word  being  sounded  flo- 
re£-da),  Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  California 
were  all  named  by  the  Spanish  long  before  any  Eng- 
lish-speaking person  ever  heard  of  them.  So  was  Lab- 
rador (the  laborer). 

One  of  the  queerest  of  these  linguistic  orphans  is 
the  English  "  cordwain,"  which  does  not  look  much 
like  its  own  father.  It  is  from  "  cordovan  "  (leather) 
— for  through  centuries  the  Spanish  city  of  Cordoba 
made  the  best  leather  in  Europe. 

Other  animal  names  we  get  from  the  Spanish  pio- 


1 68  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

neers  are  "  peccary,"  a  South  American  Indian  word 
for  the  fierce  little  wild  hog  which  used  to  range  from 
New  Mexico  and  Texas  to  Chile  (it  is  also  called 
"  javeli,"*  another  Indian  word  through  the  Spanish); 
"  parroquet  ";  "burro"  (from  Spain);  "iguana"  (from 
Hayti)  ;  "  toucan  "  (from  Brazil).  "  Jigger,"  or  "  chigo," 
the  terrible  tiny  parasite  which  burrows  into  the  flesh 
of  the  feet,  and  often  causes  loss  of  limb  or  life,  gets 
its  name  from  the  Spanish  chigre  (chee-greh).  "  Ci- 
marron," the  mountain  sheep,  is  a  Spanish  word  which 
means  "  wild,"  and  is  also  the  original  of  our  "  maroon" 
as  applied  to  runaway  slaves.  "  Mustang"  is  a  border 
corruption  of  mesteiio ;  and  "bronco"  (which  ignorant 
people  still  persist  in  spelling  broncho)  is  a  pure  Span- 
ish word  for  an  unbroken  horse.  It  is  bron-ko,  not 
bron-cho ;  and  ch  in  Spanish  has  invariably  the  sound 
we  give  ch  in  "  church."  Some  people  seem  to  fancy 
that  "  bronco  "  is  Greek,  and  some  relation  to  "  bron- 
chitis." 

Among  fruits  whose  use  and  names  we  learned  from 
our  Spanish  predecessors  are  our  California  pride,  the 
"  apricot  "  (Spanish  albricoque,  from  the  Moors)  ;  the 
"banana,"  "  granadilla,"  "  guava,"  "chirimoya,"  "  piti- 
haya,"  and  "pomelo";  the  pecan  nut  and  the  pifton 
(peen-y6hn).  The  mahogany-tree  (Brazilian  mahogani') 
or  caoba,  the  palmetto,  yucca,  mesquite,  maguey,  and 
many  more,  remind  us  of  our  further  debt  in  trees. 
Indigo  and  aniline  dyes  are  also  derived  from  the 
Spanish.  So  are  cochineal  {cochinilla)  and  caout- 
chouc {cahuchu).  Guaco  is  a  common  and  beauti- 
ful weed  from   which  Waco,  Texas,  gets   its  name; 

*  Ha-ve-lee. 


BORROWED  FROM  THE  ENEMY       1 69 

and  "  canaigre "  is  another,  less  handsome  but  more 
useful. 

Alfalfa,  the  king  of  all  forage  plants,  came  first  from 
Spain  to  Peru  ;  thence  to  Mexico  and  up  here — and  its 
name  still  testifies  to  its  Moorish  lineage.  Our  muti- 
nous wild  "  alfileree  "  gets  its  name  from  some  unlet- 
tered granger's  attempt  upon  the  Spanish  alfilerillo 
(al-feel-a-r£el-yo).  Any  one  who  will  once  notice  its 
seed-vesicles  will  understand  the  aptness  of  its  name, 
which  comes  from  alfiler,  a  pin.  The  feminine  form  is 
a  blunder  of  our  dictionaries.  The  Spanish  Californians 
call  it  always  alfilerillo,  and  no  one,  despite  the  dic- 
tionaries, ever  calls  it  alfilaril-la. 

"Alcove"  is  from  Spanish  alcoba — and  back  of  that, 
of  course,  from  the  Arabic.  "  Corridor  "  is  Spanish,  and 
so  is  "Mosque."  "Adobe,"  "patio,"  "plaza,"  "pue- 
blo," "presidio,"  "azotea"  (the  flat  promenade  roof), 
and  "jacal"  (hack-al,  house  of  palisade  chinked  with 
adobe)  are  all  Spanish  unchanged  in  form,  though  fre- 
quently enough  butchered  in  pronunciation. 

The  sailor's  "  capstan  "  is  of  Spanish  invention  and 
christening  {cabestran,  rope-winder).  "  Filibuster  "  is 
from  filibustero ;  and  "  caravel,"  "  flotilla,"  "  armada," 
and  "  galleon  "  are  as  recognizable  to  any  intelligent 
reader  as  to  the  mariner.  "Mariner"  itself,  by  the 
way,  is  of  the  same  nationality  (marinero). 

"  Renegade  "  {renegado)  and  "  Creole  "  (criotto,  prop- 
erly used  only  of  the  children  born  in  America  of 
Spanish  or  French  parents,  and  pure  blooded)  are 
familiar  words  to  every  one,  as  "  mestizo "  (mixed 
breed)  and  "  cholo  "  (cross  of  European  with  Indian) 
are  to  the  scientist.  "  Coyote  "  is  also  used  by  100,- 
000  citizens  of  the  United  States  (though  the  dictiona- 


170  THE  AWAKENING   OF  A   NATION 

ries  wot  not  of  it)  in  a  secondary  sense  to  mean  a  half- 
breed. 

"  Grandee  "  and  "  don  "  need  no  introduction ;  but  ev- 
ery one  may  not  remember  that  even  our  English  "  ad- 
mirals "  were  beholden  to  Spain  for  their  title,  which 
still  further  back  was  derived  from  the  Arabic  amir-al- 
bahr,  "commander  of  the  sea."  Then  there  is  "hidal- 
go," that  true  aristocrat  of  a  word,  hifo  de  a/go — "  son 
of  somebody  as  is  something." 

Miners  would  be  rather  lost  without  "  el  dorado  " 
("the  gilded  "  cacique  of  the  Colombian  plateau),  and 
"bonanza,"  and  "placer,"  and  many  other  words  we 
have  inherited  from  the  first  American  Argonauts. 
And  the  very  "  frontier"  they  love  is  only  the  Span- 
ish front  era. 

Our  Castile  soap,  and  Lima  (Peru)  beans  ;  our  sherry 
(Xeres),  port  (Oporto),  Manzanilla,  Madeira,  Canary, 
and  Amontillado  wines  are  not  much  "  masqueraded  " 
(another  Spanish  word) ;  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  recog- 
nize, in  the  "  sirroons  "  so  familiar  to  the  indigo  trade, 
the  original  zur rones.  "  Filigree  "  is  a  bit  wide  from 
filigrana;  and  the  German  "  canaster,"  tobacco,  seems 
to  have  wandered  far  from  the  Spanish  canastra,  bas- 
ket. The  peanut  is  quite  unrecognizable;  but  it  was 
discovered  by  the  Spanish,  and  is  still  called  in  South 
America  mani  (its  Quichua  name),  and  on  this  conti- 
nent cacahuate,  a  corrupted  Aztec  word.  In  its  old 
home  it  had  a  dignity  we  do  not  give  it,  being  con- 
verted into  flour  as  well  as  into  the  delicious  drink 
ckicha;  and  I  have  exhumed  it,  unharmed,  in  the  laps 
of  Peruvian  mummies  of  great  antiquity. 

The  geographer  has  to  deal  not  only  with  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  Spanish  proper  names,  but  with  a  great  many 


BORROWED   FROM   THE   ENEMY  171 

generic  ones  as  well.  "  Savannah  "  (from  sdbana,  a 
sheet),  "sierra,"  "cordillera,"  "cafion"  (canyohn, literal- 
ly a  cannon  or  gun-barrel) ; "  cafiada  "  (can-yah-da,  a  nar- 
row valley,  but  not  cliff-walled  like  a  cafion)  ;  "  mesa  " 
(may-sa),  a  table-land ;  "  pampa  "  (from  the  Quichua 
bamba),  one  of  the  lofty  plains  of  South  America;  "  ar- 
royo"(a  ravine);  "key"  (like  the  Florida  Keys,  de- 
rived from  cayd)\  "  lagoon"  (from  lagunci);  "  barranca," 
a  bluff;  "  llano  "  (l'yah-no,  a  desert  plain)  ;  "  cienega  " 
(see-en-nay-gah,  a  wet  meadow) — these  are  a  few  of  the 
Spanish  words  he  must  have  at  his  tongue's  end.  As 
for  the  naturalist,  he  needs  a  vocabulary  of  several 
thousand  Spanish  words — mostly  adapted  from  the 
Indian — to  cover  the  fauna  of  the  Americas ;  and  the 
botanist  about  as  many  more  for  the  flora.  The  eth- 
nologist is  similarly  indebted  for  the  great  majority  of 
his  Indian  tribe-names.  Apache,  Comanche,  Pueblo, 
Navajo,  Yuma,  Papago,  Ute,  Mescalero,  and  hundreds 
of  others  are  direct  from  the  Spanish. 

Many  Spanish  words  or  Spanish  derivations  from 
Indian  tongues  have  become  current  with  ethnologists 
and  well-read  people  the  world  over.  Such  are  cacique 
(ca-see-ke),  a  word  which  originated  in  Santo  Domingo, 
and  became  naturalized  in  every  tribe  of  Indians  be- 
tween Colorado  and  Bolivia;  estufa,  Spanish  for  stove, 
but  now  universally  adapted  for  the  sacred  man-house 
of  the  aborigine ;  cachina,  one  special  dance  of  one 
special  tribe,  now  generally  applied  to  all  Indian  cere- 
monial dances  ;  temescal,  the  Aztec  medicinal  sweat- 
house  or  primitive  Turkish  bath — and  many  more. 

Equally  familiar  are  "siesta  "  (shortened  from  sesta 
hora,  the  sixth  hour,  noon),  the  mid-day  rest ;  "  man- 
tilla "  and  "  rebozo,"  head  draperies  ;  "  poncho,"  that 


172  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

blessed  South  American  invention  of  a  blanket  with  a 
hole  in  the  centre  for  the  head,  a  pattern  followed  in 
all  Navajo  blankets  of  the  very  highest  order;  "zarape" 
(frequently  blundered  into  "serape");  the  charming 
dances  of  the  "  fandango,"  "  bolero,"  "  cachuca,"  "  chi- 
ca,"  and  the  like. 

The  familiar  "chinch-bug"  is  merely  a  descendant 
of  the  Spanish  chinche  ;  and  the  "  New  Jersey  Eagle  " 
is  of  clean  Spanish  blood  —  mosquito,  "a  little  fly," 
diminutive  of  mosca.  Among  epicures  the  "  pompano," 
"  bonito,"  "  barracuda,"  are  sample  reminders  that  the 
Spaniards  also  knew  a  good  fish  when  they  saw  it. 

"  Tapioca  "  is  from  the  Brazilian  tipioca  ;  and  "  cas- 
sava," its  source,  is  an  unchanged  Spanish  word. 
"  Manioc  "  is  similarly  descended.  Even  "  coffee  " — 
Heaven's  next-last,  next-best  gift  to  man — is  from  cafe", 
and  that  from  the  Arabic  qahwe.  Of  other  Spanish 
kitchen  names,  well  known  in  the  West,  may  be  men- 
tioned  chile  (the  red  pepper),  tamale,  frijoles  (the  pre- 
cious brown  beans),  atole  (a  most  nourishing  gruel  of 
pop -corn  meal),  tortilla  (the  unleavened  bread),  and 
so  on. 

The  missionary  about  to  tempt  the  South  Sea  Isl- 
anders might  perhaps  be  comforted  to  remember  that 
"  cannibals  "  are  nothing  worse  than  a  corruption  of 
the  Spanish  Caribes  (cah-ree-bes)  or  Caribs.  The 
spinster  owes  both  her  canary  and  its  name  (if  she  will 
trace  the  debt  back)  to  the  Spaniards — though  with 
them  candrio  is  now  hardly  so  fond  a  term  as  she 
might  expect.  As  for  her  "  porcelain,"  that  comes 
the  same  way,  its  original  being  porcelana,  which  in 
turn  is  irom  puerco  (pig) — the  porcelain  shell  having  a 
shape-resemblance  to  a  porker's  back. 


J 


I 


THE    RUBRICA    OF    SPAIN 


BORROWED  FROM  THE   ENEMY  1 73 

"  Acequia  "  (ah-say-kee-a),  the  irrigating  ditch  which 
is  the  life  of  the  Southwest,  is  Spanish  by  name  and 
custom.  "  Ranch  "  is  from  rancho  ;  "  ranchero  "  is  de- 
rived unchanged  ;  "  rancheree  "  (an  Indian  village)  is 
a  corruption  of  raficheria.  "Corral,"  "peon,"  "rodeo," 
"  hacienda,"  "  major-domo,"  "  latigo,"  "  sombrero,"  are 
all  direct  Spanish- Americans.  So  is  "vaquero"  (of 
which  cow-boy  is  a  mere  offshot).  "  Loco-weed  "  is 
from  loco,  crazy.  "  Cinch  "  comes  from  cincha.  The 
cow-boy's  leathern  "  chaps  "  are  short  for  cliapparejos  ; 
and  his  word  "  cavvyard  "  (horse -herd)  is  a  still  more 
remarkable  liberty  with  caballada. 

A  typical  cowboy  perversion  is  the  familiar,  but 
never  before  traced,  "  horse -wrangler."  Not  in  any 
Spanish  dictionary,  caballerango  is  a  pure  Mexican- 
ism,  now  almost  obsolete.  It  meant  the  man  in 
charge  of  the  spare  riding- ponies  of  an  expedition. 
Caballo,  every  cowboy  knew,  was  horse ;  so,  transla- 
ting half  the  word  and  corrupting  the  rest,  we  got 
"  horse-wrangler." 

One  might  follow  indefinitely  so  pleasant  by-paths; 
but  basta  !  As  throughout,  I  must  merely  set  up  a 
finger-board  and  go  on. 


XV 

THE  SPANISH -AMERICAN  FACE 

The  seal  of  Spain  is  upon  all  things  that  she  has 
ever  touched.  To  the  thoughtful,  few  side-lights  in 
history  are  more  striking  than  this  vital  individuality 
of  the  Spaniard.  Whatever  page  he  opened  in  the 
New  World,  he  wrote  across  it  his  racial  autograph  in 
a  hand  so  virile  and  so  characteristic  that  neither  time 
nor  change  can  efface  it.  Three  centuries  and  a  half 
of  continuous  evolution  have  not  availed  to  make  that 
nibrica  illegible  or  mistakable.  He  mastered  every 
country  between  us  and  Patagonia ;  and  there  is  no 
land  in  which  he  ever  sat  down  which  does  not  to 
this  last  day  bear  in  its  very  marrow  the  heritage  of 
his  religion,  his  language,  and  his  social  creed.  His 
marca  is  upon  the  faces,  the  laws,  the  very  landscapes. 

How  significant  this  is  we  may  better  judge  when 
we  remember  that  the  Saxon,  masterful  though  he  is, 
has  never  anywhere  achieved  these  results.  He  has 
filled  new  lands  with  his  speech  and  his  faith  (or  his 
lack  of  it),  but  only  by  filling  them  with  his  own  blood, 
never  by  changing  the  native.  The  United  States, 
for  instance,  is  of  his  speech  ;  but  what  Indian  tribe 
ever  spoke  English  ?  In  the  vastly  greater  area  of 
Spanish  America  every  Indian  tribe  speaks  Spanish, 
and  has  done  so  for  centuries.     The  Saxon  has  never 


THE   AXDALUZ    AMERICANIZED 


THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  FACE  1 75 

impressed  his  language  or  his  religion  upon  the  peo- 
ples he  has  overrun.  Something  of  his  face  goes  to 
the  half-breeds  he  begets  and  will  not  father;  but  even 
this  physical  impress  is  less  marked  than  in  the  case 
of  his  Latin  predecessor.  For  he  himself,  of  course,  is 
a  less  fixed  type. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  no  other  nation  in  history 
has  ever  legitimately  produced  crosses  with  so  many 
aboriginal  bloods  as  has  Spain.  The  conquistador  was 
human  ;  but  the  hand  of  the  church  was  always  upon 
his  shoulder.  Individually  and  casually  he  might 
elude  it,  but  broadly  he  could  not.  He  intermarried 
with  a  thousand  distinct  types  of  the  Original  Ameri- 
can ;  and  all  the  way  from  Denver  to  Valparaiso  you 
can  tally  the  varying  fruits  of  these  first  wedlocks  of 
the  first  frontier.  You  are  often  in  doubt  as  to  the 
mother,  distinct  as  tribe  originally  is  from  tribe ;  but 
the  father  —  you  need  no  directory  to  find  him. 
Among  these  mestizos  are  some  of  the  finest  types, 
physically,  of  Spanish  America. 

The  same  astonishing  individuality  which  has  stamp- 
ed itself  forever  upon  the  offspring  of  his  union  with 
innumerable  other  bloods  has,  when  he  stayed  un- 
mixed, as  remarkably  preserved  his  own  family  like- 
ness. Compare  the  Yankee  with  the  Briton,  then 
the  lineal  Spanish-American  with  the  Spaniard — and 
you  will  marvel  to  see  how  much  more  strongly  the 
latter  is  "  marked "  across  ten  generations  than  the 
former  across  two  or  three.  Among  civilized  nations 
only  the  Jew  hands  down  the  ancestral  face  so  per- 
sistently through  the  ages. 

The  Spanish-American  face  is  always  Spanish,  yet 
not  quite  of  Spain.     As  much  to  the  artist  as  to  the 


176  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

anthropologist  it  is  a  fascinating  study — the  differen- 
tiation of  this  unmistakable  and  attractive  type  by 
local  conditions  operating  for  centuries.  That  is  what 
evolution  means ;  and  here  is  the  very  poetry  of  evolu- 
tion, as  true  and  instructive  as  the  prose.  It  is  lucid 
verse^  too.  One  may  grow  so  proficient  as  to  guess 
very  shrewdly,  from  an  unmarked  photograph,  from 
what  section  of  Spanish  America  the  sitter  comes, 
particularly  if  it  be  a  woman's  face,  which  is  more 
plastic  to  the  hand  of  circumstance.  Yet  there  is  no 
sameness.  A  thousand  localities  have  their  local  va- 
riants, each  as  a  rule  already  a  recognized  type ;  each 
one  face  has  its  individuality  as  clear  as  with  us;  and 
through  all,  individual  or  local,  runs  the  inevitable 
sub-dominant  of  Spain. 

We  often  talk  of  the  Spanish  type  as  exclusively 
dark — a  notion  which  argues  no  great  knowledge  of 
either  history  or  geography.  All  Spaniards  are  not 
morenos.  The  swart  Moorish  tide  that  ebbed  and 
flowed  across  Spain  for  seven  centuries  did,  indeed, 
leave  its  eternal  mark  upon  the  Gothic-Roman  ;  but 
all  Spain  was  not  drowned.  As  you  go  northward  from 
the  Ebro — that  is,  up  where  the  Moresque  wave  rather 
splashed  than  inundated — you  find  the  nut-brown  of 
Valencia  and  Castile  shading  off  to  lighter  hues.  Not 
unknown  in  other  provinces,  in  Galicia,  Arragon,  and 
Asturias,  the  "gold-haired, heaven-eyed"  type  is  famil- 
iar. And  if  there  is  anywhere  a  more  perfect  beauty 
than  that  of  the  true  Spanish  blonde,  I  would  fain 
treat  my  eyes  to  sight  of  it. 

Oddly  enough,  this  survival  of  Spain's  first  days  is 
practically  without  representation  in  Spanish  America. 
In  the  New  World  the  type  is  not  only  a  great  rarity, 


YOUNG    SPANISH-AMERICAN   TYPE 


THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  FACE  1 77 

but  a  disprized  one.  The  epigrammatic  wit  of  the 
paisano  shows  it  no  mercy.  The  die  ho  has  a  hundred 
forms;  but  in  some  shape  it  is  current  everywhere. 
Palma,  the  laureate  of  Peruvian  letters,  has  given  it 
its  most  finished  form  : 

"  Como  una  y  una  son  dos, 
Por  las  morenas  me  muero ; 
Lo  bianco,  lo  hizo  un  platero ; 
Lo  moreno,  lo  hizo  Dios." 

"As  sure  as  one  and  one,  my  elf, 

Are  two,  for  the  brown  maids  I'm  dying. 
The  white  is  but  a  tinker's  trying, 
But  God,  He  made  the  brown  Himself." 

The  perfect  moreno  is  the  most  perfect  skin  in  the 
world.  We  talk  of  olive  glibly — and  most  of  us  never 
saw  one  true  olive  type.  Now  and  then  you  find  it  in 
Spain,  and  it  is  exquisite  as  rare.  But  it  is  not  the 
"  browny  "  and  elfish  moreno,  which  is  the  hue  of  the 
"nut-brown  maid  "  of  old  English  balladry.  Our  fore- 
fathers knew  a  good  thing  when  they  saw  it. 

That  perfect  brown  is  so  transparent,  so  fine,  so 
soft,  so  richly  warmed  with  the  very  dawn  of  a  flush, 
as  no  other  cheek  that  is  worn  of  woman.  No  other 
complexion  so  lends  itself  to  the  painter's  canvas. 
Nor  would  I  precisely  advise  the  loveliest  of  my 
countrywomen  to  lay  her  cheek  to  one  of  perfect  An- 
dalusian  brown.  A  yard  away,  her  superior  beauty  is 
safe ;  but  side  by  side  she  cannot  afford  comparison 
with  that  skin — nor  ever  can,  till  Art  shall  have  re- 
versed the  whole  gospel  of  color. 

Perfection  of  the  moreno  type  is  found  in  many 
parts   of   Spanish  America.     In   Peru   it   sometimes 


178  THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  NATION 

crowns  the  predominant  Andalusian  face,  the  most 
vivacious  of  all  Spain.  In  Colombia  it  is  rarer,  thanks 
to  the  tropics  and  to — Africa.  In  parts  of  Central 
America,  of  Cuba,  of  Mexico,  even  of  New  Mexico 
and  California,  it  has  lovely  representatives.  Mexico 
is  less  famous  for  female  beauty  than  Peru,  where 
Lima  heads  the  mundane  list ;  but  it  is  not  behind  in 
genuine  charm.  Its  type  is  less  rotund :  the  peculiar 
first  touch  which  Peru  generally  adds  is  exuberance 
of  curve.  As  a  rule,  the  facial  types  of  the  cooler 
Spanish -American  countries  are  perhaps  not  hand- 
somer, but  certainly  finer,  more  spiritual,  than  those 
nearer  the  equator. 

Always  and  everywhere,  the  Spanish- American  fe- 
male face  is  interesting ;  at  least  as  often  as  in  other 
bloods  it  is  beautiful.  Photographs  tell  but  half  the 
story,  for  complexion  is  beyond  them.  But  a  certain 
clearness  of  feature,  the  almost  invariable  beauty  of 
the  eyes  and  fine  strength  of  the  brows  seem  as  much 
a  Spanish  birthright  as  the  high-bred  hand  and  foot. 

Not  even  the  Parisian  face  is  so  flexible  in  expres- 
sion, so  fit  for  archness,  so  graphic  to  the  mood.  Yet 
there  is  a  certain  presence  in  it  not  to  be  unnoticed, 
not  to  be  forgotten.  To  no  woman  on  earth  is  relig- 
ion a  more  vital,  ever-present,  all-pervading  actuality  ; 
and  that  is  why  you  meet  the  face  of  the  Madonna  al- 
most literally  at  every  corner  of  Spanish  -  America. 
And  it  is  not  a  superficial  thing.  There  is  none  in 
whom  the  wife-heart,  the  mother-heart,  is  truer-wom- 
anly. The  dona  is  human.  She  may  err,  but  she  can 
never  be  gross.  It  is  a  truth  so  well  known  to  every 
traveller  that  I  wonder  to  find  our  philosophers  so 
dumb  about  it — that  even  when  outcast,  no  woman 


THE   SPANISH-AMERICAN  FACE  1 79 

of  Spanish  blood  falls  or  can  fall  to  the  outer  vileness 
which  haunts  the  purlieus  of  every  English-speaking 
great  city.  And,  thanks  to  her  religion  and  to  her 
social  conservatism,  she  contributes  perhaps  fewer  re- 
cruits to  the  outcast  ranks  than  any  other  civilized 
woman. 

At  her  best  she  is  admirable  in  heart  as  in  face ;  at 
her  average,  interesting  in  both.  Years  of  study  of 
the  field  in  which  she  is  a  sociologic  part  of  history  have 
given  me  to  know  and  to  respect  her.  She  is  a  true 
woman — which  is  as  good  as  can  be  said  of  any  creat- 
ure that  is  mortal.  And  for  the  frontispiece  that  God 
gave  her — that  wise  artist-touch  of  His  to  cajole  the 
male  brute  into  reading  through  the  best  of  all  books 
— I  can  say  no  more  for  it  than  is  said :  "  Es  mucha 
car  a,  la  car  a  de  el/a." 


THE  END 


GETTY  CENTER  LIBRARY 


3  3125  00059  4362 


